


Lady Lannisport

by just_a_dram



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Arranged Marriage, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 69,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: Tywin Lannister means to bring together two fine families through the marriage of his eldest son, Lord Lannisport, to the eligible Miss Stark. It would be a good enough match if they did not both despise each other.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 345
Kudos: 882





	1. The Proposal

The gravel of the Stark’s approach crunches under Jaime’s feet, as he strides from his horse, handed off to the grey-haired servant that met him with bland disinterest. Even the bloody servants at Winterfell think they descend from Alfred himself it would seem. Brushing at his breeches with his crop to knock the ride’s dust free, he squints up at the Stark’s ancient house, where generations of their family have been brought into the world wailing and left it with characteristic Stark solemnity, no doubt. It shows shocking signs of disrepair, since their fortunes have shifted.

They hardly have cause to be so dreadfully proud now. Then again, neither does he.

Jaime can’t say for sure, but he would wager there isn't a family in the county with luck worse than the Stark’s. Sir Eddard is dead, having been thrown from a horse, riding on some desperate errand in a rainstorm. The eldest boy, Robb Stark, died quickly on the heels of his father, leaving behind a young widow of no fortune. The wars with France took him, the same that robbed Jaime of his right hand. But being prodigious breeders, Lady Stark had two younger boys besides—Bran and Rickon—that might have been counted on to steer the ship once they were grown. Until a grippe infected half the village and carried both of them off this winter, leaving only the Dowager Lady Stark and her two daughters.

The Lannisters mean to profit from that bad luck. Or rather, Jaime's father means to profit. The Stark’s title, a paltry baronetcy, passed by special remainder to Sir Eddard’s nephew, Jon Snow, the only son of a sister, but the bulk of the estate is ripe for the picking. Jaime’s father generously pronounced he might marry either Stark girl at his earliest convenience. Meaning immediately, since time is of the essence: the aforementioned newly titled nephew might take it into his head to marry one of them himself. After all, Jon had spent most of his childhood at Winterfell and might already have some nascent fondness ready to be stoked into a full-blown passion if given the chance. 

And for all Jaime cares, Sir Jon is welcome to them. It was Jaime’s intention to end his days a bachelor. Let his brother and sister marry for money and rank. He has only ever wanted to distinguish himself on the battlefield. But there is little need for a one-handed man in battle. His soldiering days are over, and until his father departs this earth, Tywin Lannister holds the purse strings.

Filial duty inspired by material desperation means marrying where he is directed. He did attempt to weasel free from that duty, but his suggestion that his father, the Earl of Casterly Rock, marry one of the Miss Starks himself was not met with great fanfare. Nor is Jaime presently welcome at his sister’s home, where he might hide from his father's insistent pontificating on the necessity of growing the family estate through wisely made marriages and investment.

Which is why he’s come to Winterfell with an undesirable choice set before him.

He frowns at the moon face that darts from what he recalls as being the parlor window. His arrival has been spied by one of the female denizens of this place, which appears since last he was here in dire need of Lannister coin. He raps on the door with a flick of his knuckles and peers up at the rotting frame above his head. Jaime doesn’t care if Winterfell molders into oblivion. Nor will his father, since they’ll reap the bounty of the tenants’ rents whether Winterfell becomes a ruin or no. Sansa might have other notions, as her mother resides here and she is likely a sentimental sort like so many of her sex, but the Earl of Casterly Rock won’t concern himself with the wishes of a sixteen-year-old bride.

Handing off his hat and giving his name to the portly serving woman who greets him with a grimace and shallow bob, he waits with his hands—real and false—behind his back in order to be announced in the parlor, from where feminine whispers can be heard hissing like a basket of cobras.

His appearance has caused some excitement. But then, what mother in a rudderless household would not be aflutter at the prospect opened up by an eligible man of title and land paying them a visit. She has two daughters in desperate need of marrying off. He is a single man. There are no men in this household for him to visit. None to invite to shoot birds, none to seek questionable advice on farming practices. There is only one reason a single man such as himself might darken their door.

And his father wrote ahead to suggest his son would be in the neighborhood and might see fit to stop by.

 _Mortifying_.

Their hushed twitters come to an abrupt end, as he steps through the doorway and surveys the room. A darker skinned girl sits amongst them. Robb’s widow, presumably, though he has never been introduced. It is not a connection worth making, after all. The boy made an unfortunate match to a girl of no family, no fortune, who had nothing to offer them save the ability to provide them with Stark heirs. Robb died, however, before whatever practice they indulged in making squalling infants took root. The Dowager Lady Stark must regret her son’s choice more than ever, being now saddled with the useless girl.

Hopefully there is no great attachment between Miss Stark and the girl, for Jaime would hate to get her in the bargain as a companion for his young bride.

Heads inclined over decorative needlework, they pause before looking up to greet their visitor. A quick glance at the younger Miss Stark indicates, however, that the needle she holds over her wooden frame is not threaded. Her game is up, but it is a farce with all of them, in truth, this picture they paint for him: feminine industry unburdened by real demands upon their time.

They stand in canon and curtsy as he bows.

“Lord Lannisport, Lady Stark,” the serving woman says.

He despises them. Instantly, he feels revulsion stir in his belly, standing before them with neither of the girls’ face lit with pleasure and the Dowager Lady Stark uncharacteristically pale. It isn’t their fault that they have drawn the attention of his father. Or that their fortunes are so changed that they must undoubtedly embrace his offer. Whatever Catelyn Stark thinks of him personally, she is a practical woman and will have made clear to the girls how they should receive him. But he hates them for it nonetheless, as the lion cannot abide the lamb.

“My Lord, how good of you to visit us and on such a fine day.”

What else can he content himself to do than throw in with women, when he can’t even hunt? The thought deepens his disgust: he’ll be constantly in her company, trapped. The two of them like a pair of hens instead of a proper man and wife.

He grins lazily. “My pleasure, Lady Stark. Or is _this_ the new Lady Stark,” he says, twisting to address the plain sort of beauty Robb Stark ruined his family’s future chances for.

What an enormous fool.

The girl curtsies with exaggerated care like she was a shopkeepers daughter before Robb turned up. There is absolutely nothing special about her from her leather slippers to the chestnut crown of her head.

“Yes, this is Jeyne, the new Lady Stark,” Sir Eddard’s widow replies through her teeth.

She despises him too it would seem for reminding her of that fact. Sir Eddard and his wife were uncommonly close. It was almost unseemly, that kind of marital accord.

“And you know my daughters, Sansa and Arya, though Arya was not yet out when last you were in the village. Two winters ago was it?”

“Yes, I believe you are correct. Charmed.”

Miss Arya is only fourteen and practically feral—both in appearance and behavior. Hardly a suitable wife for anyone, unless a man wants to play nursemaid for an insufferable brat. While, the elder sister, Miss Sansa Stark, is by reputation one of the great beauties of the county. Jaime’s twin, Cersei, would not like to hear it repeated, but Jaime’s nephew, Joffrey, boasted of the fact in Jaime’s presence on more than one occasion.

Being a young man without substance, Joffrey proposed to Sansa on the basis of this supposed loveliness. Reportedly, he did so without much prodding from his grandfather, the Earl, who has had designs on the Stark estate for some time. All was going to plan, when the engagement was announced. Joffrey, however, was yet another casualty of the wars on the Continent, killed at the Battle of Vitoria. With the Stark men all dead, however, his father could not sleep, knowing Sansa had slipped the noose.

He turns, looking pointedly at the empty chair closest to him, awaiting either Lady Stark or the Dowager’s invitation to join them, so they can all end their stupid standing about. Any other family in their situation would not only be grateful to see him stalking through their park, heralding their imminent salvation, they’d be honored by the association. He hails from a fine family and is a war hero. They should be falling all over themselves to make him feel welcome.

Catelyn’s nostrils flare. “You are dusty from your ride, Lord Lannisport.”

He cranes his head, eyes widening in disbelief. “Ah, yes. Tracking dirt into the hallowed halls of Winterfell. A punishable offense.”

“Only if you dirty my chair, my lord.”

“Shall I go away then? Or sit the floor like a Buddha?”

“You weren’t invited,” the little one snaps just in time to receive a quick elbow from her sister.

The Dowager Lady Stark rocks forward, advancing towards the window that overlooks their park. “Considering the state of you, perhaps you might like to see our park. It's a shame to be indoors anyway, and the hawthorn is in bloom.”

“As you suggest,” he says with no attempt at enthusiasm. “You mean to show me yourself, I expect.”

Indeed, there being three eligible Stark women, Jaime rather thought Catelyn might suit him best, her at least being known to him since he was a boy. Her sister was a possibility as a match for him once upon a time, and even then he liked Catelyn better. She has spirit, which might prove amusing. Never mind that she is a handsome woman and always has been. That suggestion was rejected outright by his father as well, however.

“The girls may take you for a turn. I have to attend to something and Jeyne was to assist me. Weren’t you, Jeyne?”

Ever the vigilant mother, Catelyn clearly can’t risk him finding the young widow as appealing as Robb once did. A perverseness in him wants to demand Jeyne come too to ruffle her feathers, but he can’t even feign passing interest in the girl.

“Sansa can go. I’ll help you too, Mother,” Arya says.

“You’ll go with your sister,” Catelyn says with enough authority that Arya falls in behind her sister, head tucked down and lower lip protruding stubbornly.

Miss Stark's gaze meets his in a timid flutter of lashes. “If you’ll follow me, my Lord.”

At least her sister has some fight in her. Sansa is all meekness, a quality wholly without appeal.

Rather, some men find that sort of thing desirable. But Jaime is certainly not one of them. And as he follows her into the park, her little sister scuffing her feet behind him and then kicking at the grass in a petulant fit, he dwells on how very tiresome it will be, being married. Especially to this girl, who lacks mettle and has been trained to be always docile.

If he doesn't want to lose his mind, he will have to spend a great deal of time away from Lannisport. Preferably at Dragonstone, so he might be with his sister.

Last he was there was during his rehabilitation. It was not the relief he imagined it would be, being once more at her side, fresh from the battlefield. The only person who hates the prosthetic hand designed by the finest doctor money could buy more than Jaime does is his sister. Cersei hates that he retired from the army. Hates every sign of his melancholy triggered by the loss of his hand. Hates that he is not whole. Her distaste for what he has become is in her eyes, when she looks at him, and in her tone, when she addresses him. It is unmistakable. They had a proper row over it there at the end. Before he was uninvited from Dragonstone.

That is the additional difficulty: her husband, the Marquess of Dragonstone, who would have preferred Jaime died on the field, where the surgeon took his hand with a bone saw. Then again, Jaime wishes that his sister’s drunken husband had never been born, so the feeling is perfectly mutual.

He offers the girl his arm, and she takes it with a nervous dart of her eyes to his face and away. She will have noticed the prosthetic as well. It is why he keeps his hands tucked behind his back as much as humanly possible, to preserve the illusion that he is still a man.

“I could take you on a tour of the orchard if you like,” she says with a nod towards the south. “My father had them planted for my mother when first they wed. All of her favorite varietals. So that she might feel at home here.”

“How very romantic. I have, however, seen orchards before, Miss Stark. However fond of them your mother might be, you can spare us both the trouble.”

He could summon gallantries. Go along with her attempts to be pleasing and make some effort himself on that count. He even congratulates himself that he could raise a pretty blush on her ivory cheeks, should he be so inclined.

But he is not. This is an arrangement as much as all marriages are. They are commodities to be traded, and there is no purpose in crafting pleasantries.

“You know why I’ve come.”

With her beribboned straw bonnet shielding half her face, she has to angle her head almost completely to the side to look up into his face. She’s tall for her sex and when her eyes fix upon his, the lack of a substantial difference in their height lends a fleeting impression of boldness. Or it puts him in mind of his sister, who is similarly slim and tall. He turns towards her to assess whether it was a mirage or whether she has some hidden depths.

Her arm slips free of his and her lashes lower, shadowing her pink cheeks. Yes, she’s pretty if one likes auburn hair and fair skin and rosy lips. Ginger puts him in mind of the Scots or Irish unfortunately. She is not to Jaime’s taste, though his lack of attraction to her makes no difference.

She’ll accept, otherwise he would not wager to ask, but his chest tightens in apprehension, as he seizes her hand with his left. There will be no honorable way to extricate himself, once the words have left his mouth. He will be bound to her, this girl to whom he has no connection. The only thing they will have in common is a distinct lack of options.

Her bosom swells beneath her plain muslin dress, pale skin rising to fill the gap in her dress until it pulls tight. She will need new gowns—a wardrobe of them—to befit her new station as his wife. These childish, country fashions will not do.

“I don’t believe I do, my lord,” she dissembles.

They have an audience. He can feel Miss Arya’s eyes upon him, ducking behind an apple tree ten paces off, the first of the trees Sansa thought to parade him through. Though he cannot make it out from this distance with the sun glinting off the windows of the hall, there is a solid chance there is an observer from that corner as well. With different purpose, however, as he rather suspects the youngest Stark is wishing he might choke on his words and expire on the spot.

“I should like for you to be my wife. Join our families as it were.”

Her throat rolls from a nervous swallow, but she summons no courage to respond to his first foray.

“I have my house in Lannisport and a townhouse in town. A comfortable allowance. You would be the mistress of these places, of course, and your mother and sister,” he says, looking over Sansa’s shoulder at the girl in question, “may visit us if you like. In time you will be the Countess of Casterly Rock, when I come into my inheritance. What do you say to that?”

“It's all very fine, I’m sure.”

“Not as first-rate as being the Marchioness of Dragonstone, but we all make do.”

His sister married best of all. At one time, she even harbored romantic notions that it would be a love match. That has not turned out to be the case. Her husband is a drunk and a cad. But her sons, Joffrey and now Tommen, are titled, wealthy young men. Sansa would have had to put up with a great deal, married to Joffrey, but she would have been a glamorous young person in society.

“I have no regrets on that count,” she says, lifting her chin an inch, though her eyes remain downcast.

He pulls back, but forgetting that her gloved hand is cradled in his, he pulls her delicately boned hand closer to himself, looks down in disdain, when it brushes his waistcoat, and drops it.

“What’s this?”

Her hands press to her middle, crushing the fabric of her gown as her fingers curl in. Whatever daring inspired the confession, she looks as if she regrets it. “We were not well-suited,” she says more softly. “By the time the date was set, I wished I could be free of the promise.”

“And then you were,” Jaime says, brows reaching high.

His nephew was beastly. Truly beastly. Perhaps the girl became sensible of his failings—understandable, but an affront to his family nonetheless. She's either remarkably stupid or grief has addled her brain.

Her rosebud mouth purses. “Though I wish under very different circumstances, you’ll understand, I hope. We were all greatly saddened by his passing.”

“Well, out of the frying pan and into the fire,” he says, tucking his hands behind his back once more and squaring his shoulders. “I’ll hardly suit you any better—our having nothing in common and no shared affection. He at least thought you very pretty, as I recall.”

She looks off to the side, color rising, though not from the shy blush he imagined he could produce in her.

“Forgive me,” he says, good hand flexing behind his back. “Do you wish to think on it? Keep me dazzled in anticipation of your answer?”

“I was not raised to play at games with men.”

At his sharp laugh, she blinks like she’s been slapped.

“Yes, that would make you too interesting.”

Yes, she is a lamb. All of the wolf of their family crest bred out of her.

“But that’s well enough. It is my brother who is the one in my family skilled at games.” He is especially skilled at gambling away the family money. “Tyrion? You are acquainted, are you not?”

She nods. “I am indeed. Your brother was quite kind when my dear father passed.”

He frowns at the sincerity of her delivery. Her face even softens for a fleeting moment. Jaime was serving on the Continent at the time and can’t verify her claim towards his brother's kindness. But then, his brother is soft, when it comes to widows and orphans and the like, so it would not surprise him that Tyrion acted thus.

Many people don’t like his brother on account of his being born a dwarf. Jaime is predisposed to think well of anyone who sees past that detail.

He lets his eyes rake over her. “Was he?”

“Yes, my lord. He did what he could.”

Jaime wonders what exactly that entailed. Material comfort? Words of condolence? Something else?

“Well then,” Jaime stalls, rocking slightly on his heels, for suddenly he is the one who doesn't know how to proceed.

“The answer must be yes, my lord, mustn’t it?”

There’s such pinched resignation in her oval face at her avowal, Jaime almost feels an answering twist in his gut. Having lost so many dear to her in so short a space, the familiarity of home must be one of her sole comforts. It’s a heavy lesson to learn at a tender age that all we love is transitory. Even the love of a sister.

“You have a choice, Miss Stark. I am not in the habit of forcing women.”

Something shimmers in her eyes at his vow. They’re not green, no perfect mirror of his own, but they are an admirable shade of blue.

“But then what would I tell my mother, when I return to the house? I’m to save my family through accepting you. It is expected I do my duty.”

He shrugs. “Tell her that I was very pleased with the quality of the bloom of the hawthorn and then obligations drew me away. She would moderate her disappointment in time.”

He nearly can imagine riding to Casterly Rock to stand up to his imperious father, thus saving Miss Stark from her unwanted fate. And while he doesn’t have any romantic stirrings for her, nor should he ever, there is an appeal to playing the hero. Especially with his role as defender of the crown at an end. A man must have a purpose.

That is something else they have in common: they are useless creatures. She by society’s design and he by virtue of cannon shot.

“You’re young. Someone else would in time ask for your hand,” he continues. “Whoever it is, it might be enough. To save your mother’s prize orchard. He might even have the use of both hands.”

She turns towards the apple orchards, face hidden from him as she pivots. “One unsolicited husband is the same as another, I expect.”

His mouth twitches, as he stares at the back of her straw bonnet. “Some men might be affronted by that suggestion.”

“Forgive me,” she says, turning back, her mouth a flat line. She holds out her hand, and he looks down at it in passing confusion before taking it in his. “I shall accept. Thank you for the honor of your proposal.”

“You do _me_ the great honor, Miss Stark,” he says, feeling as if his mouth is as artificially articulated as his expensive prosthetic. This is the moment, he realizes, where his fate is sealed as much as it will be standing before the church’s altar in a few weeks time. He breathes in the spring air, the fresh, grassy smell filling his lungs. “Shall we apply to your mother for permission?”

“Yes, my lord. Without delay.”


	2. The Homecoming

It was a simple wedding. Even by country standards, it was simple.

At Cersei’s wedding, the breakfast was the finest ever set in Casterly Rock. She liked to say that it was the finest in the whole of the county, and Jaime, having no expertise in wedding breakfasts, thought it best not to argue with her boast. Surely, she couldn’t have been far off: every variety of bread, tray upon tray of hot rolls, perfectly toast bread with freshly creamed butter, eggs, fish, ham, and a roast with a sauce unequaled were laid out upon the board. Drinking chocolate displayed in a fine punch bowl and an elaborate snow-white wedding cake fit for the Empress Josephine herself sat in the middle, towering over the rest, signaling to all in attendance the wealth and status of his beautiful sister. Nothing else would do. She saw to every detail herself to ensure perfection.

There were a great many in attendance to witness that abundance of perfection. Every Lannister that could be summoned to attend was present for the blessed event. Heaps of Baratheons too, including Robert’s too assured youngest brother and the overly severe middle one. Their father even invited their Frey cousins, who were not so fine as the rest of the family, but filled out the church admirably well alongside a passel of so-called friends and hangers-on.

Cersei looked a vision too. Her groom, on the other hand, was a sorry state. Not yet nine in the morning, when the vows were made and everyone could see he was drunk, swaying upon his feet and sweating through his white cravat, while he dabbed at his forehead with a yellowed handkerchief. But Cersei shone like a goddess, the newest fashion for slim sleeves showing off her figure and her glossy blonde hair crowned with a cap topped with feathers. No one could find fault with either the abundance of satin or refreshment on that day.

Sansa seems like the sort of girl who would appreciate a fine new dress on her wedding day, a crowd of well-wishers, and a breakfast neighbors would talk about for weeks afterward. Indeed, he expects in spite of her dour Stark upbringing that she is superficial in the way of young women, for she did settle upon his nephew once and there was no substance to be found there.

But whatever she might have dreamt of on her wedding day, that is decidedly not what she got. There was no money at the ready for more than donning her best dress—white silk trimmed in lace—and a simple repast. Buttered toast and a ham accompanied a cake that had not been covered in sugar, leaving the almond icing to brown in the oven. Her coppery hair was set off marginally well by the small white flowers entwined with ribbon, but she looked sallow in the light of the church, and the Starks had few friends present in the pews. Fewer family. The Lannisters were not called upon to attend either that day. Not even Jaime’s sister made an appearance. This detail both needled him and was a cause of relief. If she had been present, Jaime is not sure he could have forced himself to approach the vicar and see his father's plan through. Indeed, the only representative from the Lannister family was his father, presiding over the event like a hooded executioner.

And while Jaime would never expose himself to scorn by abandoning a bride at the altar, he did nearly lose his nerve, looking upon her unsmiling face as the vicar intoned dire sounding exhortations about submission and fruitfulness. If Jaime didn’t think Catelyn a suitably watchful mother, he’d suspect Miss Stark had imbibed prior to the ceremony as well, for she too swayed like his brother in-law before her, standing at his side. When the white-haired old village vicar instructed Jaime to present the rings, hers an extravagantly engraved gold band and his a more sedate copy, she seemed ready to topple over, leaving him to grab at her elbow to save them both from utter humiliation.

The whole exercise was an embarrassment.

Since that moment, he has done his best to say as little as humanly possible to her, punishing her for a union she did not wish for any more than he did. Only her absence would provide solace, and in close quarters, absence being impossible, he must seek out solitude as best he can. On the carriage ride from Winterfell to Lannisport, he looked fixedly out the window and pretended to sleep at intervals, ignoring her lone attempt to remark on the state of the roads. They were dry. It hardly merited comment.

But now that they are home—his home and now hers too—he can hardly escape her forever. Even if he leaves it to the housekeeper to give her a tour and retires to his room to sulk, there will be tomorrow to face and the day after. Until they’re both dead.

His left arm dips from the slight weight of her gloved hand pressing into his, as she picks her way down from the carriage without bothering to pause and admire his home from her perch. Only someone with the most appalling taste could find fault with Lannisport. Winterfell is crumbling, after all. She is raising her station in more than just title through her marriage.

It is a fine home of red brick and stone dressing. Not as grand as Casterly Rock, which has been the seat of his family for nigh on two centuries, but it is more comfortable as a result of its modernity. He is more than passing fond of the house, built by the architect, George Dance the Younger, in the Neoclassical style, at the behest of his mother, Joanna, when he was still a child. She didn’t see it finished, but he feels closer to her here. They used to walk the unfinished grounds, he and his sister, rushing ahead of their mother in a constant search for the next exciting sign of progress on her beloved project. His father would have given her the moon, should she have asked for it. Pulled it down with hooks and ropes. Instead, she wanted this house.

A house that is now to become the domestic sphere of Sansa Lannister, who doesn’t even glance up at the stone porte-cochere or the large windows flanked by columns, set in arch-headed reserves, which Jaime remembers laid out in plans before they ever became a reality.

“Would you care to rest from your travels, Lady Lannisport,” he offers, relishing the tell-tale frown she gives at her new name, “or would you like me to show you about the house?”

Her slippers sink slightly in the circular drive’s gravel, as her head finally tips up to take in the set of the house within the landscape. It is placed atop a hill, giving a fine prospect to the surrounding neighborhood and the pleasing grounds. If he liked her, he might even offer her the use of his mother’s landscape architect, who is still living, last he heard, to make whatever improvements she sought fit to implement.

“You’ll find it quite different from what you are accustomed.”

“Yes, I expect I will,” she says, wrinkling her nose, as she lifts a hand to shield herself from the glint of the sun.

But he doesn’t like her any better than she appears to like his house. Therefore, the grounds and the house and the furnishings will all have to suit as they stand.

“Perhaps a servant might show me, instead,” she says, withdrawing her other hand from his grip. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

Her suggestion settles it. “No trouble. How often does a bridegroom have the opportunity to introduce his bride to her new home?”

He will show her every last room in the place. Just to spite the ungrateful girl.

“Once, I expect,” she says, as he extends his hand in front of him in a show of mock-chivalry. “Unless the bridegroom replaces his bride with another.”

“No chance of that,” he says, as the shadows of the doorway fall over her face. “Some things are not worth repeating.”

Jaime gave no instructions on how the servants were to greet the new Lady Lannisport. But many of those in his employ have worked for his family for generations. Some served his mother or his father in their childhoods, some are the children and grandchildren of those who served for time immemorial, and it would seem, as Sansa hands over her bonnet and folded gloves to the closest female servant, they have decided how best to welcome her on their own.

A dutiful lot. Eager for a new mistress. He smiles flatly at the line of servants in the coffered central hall, waiting with more evident anticipation than he felt awaiting her in the church.

He can’t quite wager which is more likely to be the case, but he suspects she’ll prove either overly eager to lord over a household or too under-educated to properly run one. Whatever the case, they’ll discover the truth of it for themselves in short order. The only comfort is that his family are wealthy enough that they can absorb her mismanagement without crisis.

“Lady Lannisport,” he says by way of introduction without raising his voice to be properly heard. “Your household at your service as you can see. I intend to give her ladyship a tour of the house presently, so you might all go about your business. No need to fuss.”

“You’ll find everything ready to receive her ladyship,” Wat says with a neat curtsy.

He turns to his housekeeper. He is filled with a vague sense of irritation, since she has been spared the duty of acquainting Sansa with her new surroundings, due to the passing fit of pique he already regrets.

“I have no doubt. And if you could have something brought to the lady’s room? Some refreshment. We have been travelling the better part of the day.”

Wat curtsies again, as Sansa says her thanks to the assembled group and Jaime stalks off to his right, two serving men standing aside to let him pass. He doesn’t look back to see if she follows, for he expects she knows enough to do what is expected without request.

He waits until he’s entered the drawing room on the south front of the house to address his trailing wife. “Here we have the drawing room. It is said to boast some very fine examples of plaster work.”

“Is this where you prefer to sit during the day?” she asks, turning a half-circle without acknowledging the plaster.

“I prefer not to sit at all.” Jaime points up to the circular domed ceiling. “This is in the Adam style.”

“Adam style? I am not familiar with that mode of fashion. Are you very interested in architecture, my lord?” she asks, clasping her hands before her.

She is still wearing her travelling coat, but the servants have opened the windows and there is a good cross breeze that should keep her from expiring.

“Architecture? Not in the least.”

“But you know something of it. From university?”

He frowns, as she turns towards the windows. Is she smart enough to make a jab at his lack of education? It seems doubtful.

When presented with two possibilities—Oxford or the Grand Tour—Jaime chose the latter and returned early for wont of his sister, who until that point had been an almost constant companion.

She seems aware of his lack of a gentlemanly veneer of education. Or is Sansa merely unschooled in his history? He certainly made no attempt to acquaint her with it.

“My mother was fond of the new mode. This house was to be hers and then she passed. There has never been a mistress here. You are the first, I’m afraid.”

“I’m very sorry about your mother, my lord,” she says, looking away from the window for only a moment.

She’s a fine enough little actress, but she doesn’t meet his gaze in expressing her sympathy. That perhaps would take too much skill.

“Yes. No one told you?”

“No, my lord.”

“In childbirth. Someone ought to have informed you, so you did not make a misstep. It would not go over well with my father, should you mention her in his presence.”

“I can name the heads of your family back to the war.”

The War of the Roses, when their family was elevated, he supposes she means. Not quite so storied a history as her own family. That too might be a jab.

“How very useful,” he says, looking up at an unfinished portrait that may or may not be of some merit. He isn't even sure whether the figure is some ancestor.

“Yes, I know very little, I own,” she says, approaching the sill of one of the south front windows. “About the world in general.”

“The windows on the north have a better view. If you prefer follies and the like.”

“The style here is not, as you said, to which I am accustomed.”

Jaime sighs and turns on his heel, stalking from the drawing room through into the next room. From room to room, she follows like a lapdog. Her delicate kid slippers make hardly any sound on the flooring and woven rugs, as she wordlessly receives his recitation of what room they have entered and which they shall see next and he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge her icy disinterest.

Until they reach the ballroom, which he expects cannot fail to move a young lady.

“The ballroom,” he says, gesturing with his right hand, forgetting that it is not real and then tucking it behind his back once more.

“How magnificent,” she says with hollow apathy.

He squints at her. “Like the central hall, the ballroom reaches to the full height of the house and boasts an elaborate starfish vaulted ceiling in the style of the tombs of the ancients. Visitors apply to see the house to catch a glimpse of this ballroom. That is now yours.”

“Do they?”

He inhales against the rising tide of impatience with her refusal to give him the reception his home is due. “Are you tired, Lady Lannisport?”

She gives a small shake of her head. “I wouldn’t want to complain.”

“Jolly good. Let's press on then. It will hardly take any time to view the second floor. And there are only three floors on the east garden side. You can manage?”

“The second floor,” she echoes.

“You'll want to see how the bedrooms are appointed.”

She nods, giving no verbal reply, and he moves to leave.

“Would you not enjoy giving a ball?” he asks, as he strides to cross the central hall and enter the last room on the main floor they have not yet viewed. The only explanation he can hit upon for her lack of enthusiasm for the ballroom is that she is reluctant to please him in any thing. “To introduce yourself to the village?”

“If you like.”

“Don’t you care for dancing and music? A chance to exhibit.”

“I did once.”

“In your youth, I suppose, he says, rolling his eyes.

He pushes the door before him open, holding it wide with his artificial hand only long enough to pronounce, “The library.”

“Are we not to go in?”

“It’s full of books,” he says, letting the door close, even as she peers around him. “Stacks of them. What more do you want to see?”

“I wouldn’t mind exploring. I like to read very much.”

It’s the first hint of curiosity she’s demonstrated today. Or nearly since he’s met her. About a subject in which takes no pleasure. Of course. His father’s choice for him proves to be ill-suited with every passing moment.

“It’s a woman’s pastime,” he says, walking backwards three steps before turning for the great staircase.

“Oh certainly. Your sister is a great reader then?”

He stops upon the first stair and grimaces at her show of doe-eyed innocence. He’s sure of it now: she’s taking every opportunity to lay traps.

“No.”

Perhaps he would take heart at this show of defiance if his wounds on that account were not so fresh. As it is, he won’t stand for comment from an interloper.

Taking the steps too quickly for her to keep up, he pushes onward. The distance between them grows with each tread. Still not enough, however, as she raises her voice with no evidence of exertion hitching her breath.

“I was given to understand your sister is a very great lady. Very refined.”

During his wife’s time as his nephew’s fiancée, no doubt. He hopes he is not always to be reminded of that unpleasant fact.

“At least you were told something then. She is. With far too many responsibilities to spend her days reading romantic nonsense.”

“I see.”

“The rest of the house can wait,” he says, stopping at the second floor's landing. “Or Wat can show you.” As it turns out, he can’t see this through to the end. That they are married is enough of a punishment. He need not traipse through his house with her following at his heels. “But you will write her.”

“Who, my lord?” she says, calling up to him from five steps below, doggedly pursuing.

“My sister, the Marchioness of Dragonstone, of whom you have been told so much. You will invite her and her husband to stay with us. Their son as well.”

“Tommen.”

“Yes. There will be paper in your room and ink. You may get right down to it.”

“Would it not be better coming from you, my lord?” she asks, topping the stairs.

“No, there was a misunderstanding between myself and the Marquess, when last we parted. You will make amends. You have pretty manners, do you not?”

Her eyes dart back towards the central hall below, as if considering flight. Perhaps she knows something more of his sister than her degree of greatness. His sister is fearsome. These little barbs his wife throws are nothing compared to how Cersei can level a person with a look or a word.

“Your sister, though, she would prefer to hear from you. She might take it amiss if I were to write and not you.”

His wife’s room is at the top of the stairs on the left and it only takes a few steps to reach it. Until now, it sat empty. Wat assured him that all would be ready for her arrival, though he took no pains to see to her comfort personally.

“Yes. I expect you are one of the last people my sister would ever care to hear from, and yet,” he says, grabbing the door's brass doorknob, “I would have you do this for me.”

Throwing open the door, he grins. “Our little tour ends here. This is your room, my lady.”

Her feet fix on the floor as assuredly as if rooted. Two rosy spots appear on her high cheekbones.

He watches her, leisurely leaning back against the door frame, observing her with a slow scan of her person. He hopes very much she doesn’t wobble again, for he’s too far to catch her this time.

“I expect refreshments will be waiting,” he continues with a tip of his head towards the interior. “Some wine might be fortifying. You look _overcome_.”

“I am… tired, my lord.”

“Yes. Not that you would care to complain.”

Having her words thrown back at her, her lips press together until they turn pale.

“The linens will be fresh,” he adds to watch her squirm in place.

Finally, with a flurry of blinking that is not of the coquettish variety, she summons the power of speech. “Will you be joining me for supper, my lord?”

If he was hard of hearing from canon fire, he might have missed her tremulously voiced question entirely.

She is afraid. A frightened rabbit poised in the middle of the long hallway. Frozen in anticipation of the kill.

But he has no interest in sport of that kind. Not with her.

“No. And you needn’t concern yourself with my troubling you here. This is your room and I will keep to mine, you understand.”

“Yes, my lord.”

She squeezes past him, hurrying as if he might change his mind. There is no chance of that.


	3. The Neighborhood

They all adore her. It is somewhat irksome how much they warm to his wife. The first week was not yet out, when she won over the servants. Gentle and kind and unassuming, they all think to comment upon her many praiseworthy qualities in his company, as if they are a credit to him, the reluctant husband.

Jaime’s gotten rather good at blandly receiving such compliments. _Lady Lannisport is very good_.

He must admit, she has not caused him much trouble if any. Some of his worst fears have not come to be thus far. He can count himself lucky enough, he supposes.

She has a pleasant voice. It is not the worst way to spend an evening, listening to her sing in the next room over, while she plays the pianoforte. If he can remember, he thinks he’ll have a new book of music sent to her, next he is in town. In honor of his mother if nothing else. His mother was fond of singing. He spent many an hour listening to her, so it seems fitting that the new mistress of the house is proficient.

Sansa is proficient in more than the womanly arts. Her management of his household has not yet been long enough for him to know whether she will make a mess of the accounts, but when it comes to the personal, she has acquitted herself admirably. He has observed how she ingratiated herself without surrendering respect for her person. More surprising, she has smoothed over one or two long-standing issues between the servants, which he had left to Wat to handle without much success until Sansa’s intervention.

Maddening in a girl of her age, this easy way she has with those beneath her. There has not been such a light touch in his family for many a year.

Social betters, however, are another thing. Being only recently elevated from her station as a baronet's daughter, there is no saying how Sansa might fare in a crowded room of titled nobility, such as make up his social circle.

He avoided it, as long as he could, putting off Lord Highgarden’s invitation to come to dine along with his new wife. Jaime hates going into company with his prosthetic. It always feels as if people’s eyes are upon him, pitying him, thinking him half a man. Dinner is its own beast, eating primarily with his left hand. Therefore, he refused longer than was neighborly, more so because of his own qualms than out of a concern for his wife’s ability to navigate uncharted waters. Until, he decided that repeatedly asking for supper to be brought to his room made him seem like an invalid and could be supported no further.

As it turns out, Sansa is somewhat timid at the outset of the evening but just as warmly received by the neighborhood as she was by his household. Warmly enough that after they dined on pike with pudding in the belly, roast potatoes, dressed broccoli, and apricot ice cream to finish, Jaime saw no point in hovering about her ever-watchful. The family heraldry does not bear a mother hen, after all. Not like the bloody Herstons.

There were better things to do—like cards. Choosing a seat at one of the tables in the gaming room, he avoids Sansa's companionship, as she does not play. Catelyn with all her old-fashioned manners no doubt believed it an unfitting pastime for young girls, making her daughter a great bore on long evenings. He tried out of desperation one night to suggest they play at piquet. Going so far as to sit opposite her, where she was working on some embroidery, he tossed the piquet deck on the table as an offering. She declined. Gently, of course.

She declines Miss Tyrell’s offer as well. Just as sweetly, so not a soul could take offense. But upon her polite refusal, Miss Tyrell, who acts are her brother's hostess in the absence of a Lady Highgarden, follows Sansa’s lead in abandoning the pleasure of whist for polite conversation. Shocking, as Miss Tyrell is much gayer a person than his wife. But Miss Tyrell has been fawning all over Sansa since they arrived, petting at her like she is a plaything. Perhaps she rues giving up that game more than the promised delight of a game of chance.

Sansa and Miss Tyrell are joined by her brother, who lounges at Sansa’s right. Despite being her husband, he has never sat so near to her as either of the Tyrells. They lean in, forming too intimate a picture for first acquaintances.

Much to his partner Garlan Tyrell's dismay, Jaime loses his first hand, his attention constantly drawn to them. Whether Sansa is his chosen companion or not, no wife of his will be treated poorly. Whatever the youngest Tyrells are about, they best not trouble her. There will be no sport at her expense. An insult to her would be an insult to his own person, and he will not stand for it. Certainly not from people he outranks. Willas is a viscount and a decent sort of man, but Loras is a third son and Margaery, while due a sizable dowry, is no earl’s daughter.

One hand of cards lost and then another, for while he detects no outward malice in their interest in Sansa, he still can't stop looking their way. Especially when Margaery’s brother fetches the two ladies fresh cups of punch and Sansa receives it with a blush, when he bows with an unnecessary flourish. Of all the men in the room, Loras Tyrell in his regimentals is the one Jaime likes least to see provoking such a reaction in his wife.

Jaime flattens his cards on the table with a slap. “You'll have to excuse me. I believe I’ve lost enough money for the evening.”

He pushes back his chair. No one thinks to stop him. They wouldn’t. And though there is a rising tide of irritation building in him, he strolls over to the cozy threesome with practiced nonchalance.

Feet astride and hands behind his back, he stops before them. He says nothing, preferring to merely raise his brows in silent question.

Mr. Tyrell is exceptionally sure of his military prowess, but Jaime suspects his impetuous nature and desire for glory would be checked by a muddy field in France. Loras is certain of his handsomeness too, as his uniform attests. It is quite nearly unsuited for the field as the man who wears it. His uniform coat and cocked hat are embroidered in gold and his buttonholes laced, pushing the boundaries of the Royal Clothing Warrant of 1768. It's what comes of too much success at too early an age: Mr. Tyrell is under the impression that the rules do not apply to him.

“Lord Lannisport,” the insolent Tyrell boy finally says, to which Jaime grins in response.

“Have I interrupted?”

“So long as you don’t mean to spirit Lady Lannisport away, then no,” Mr. Tryell says, draping his arm over the back of his chair with a rakish lean.

“And risk breaking up this happy scene? How could I?” Jaime drawls.

“Good. For we are enchanted. Are we not? What a treasure your new wife is, my lord. You did not say how very pretty she was. For shame! Is she not a pretty thing?” Miss Tyrell exclaims, shifting her focus from her brother to Jaime and back again in her easy way.

There are those who think Miss and Mr. Tyrell the most handsome siblings in the county. As children, they were often mistaken for each other. Both with golden eyes and soft brown curls. Both as slender as a girl.

They are alike in more than just appearance. It is just like the cheek of the Tyrells to act all astonishment on the point of Sansa’s appearance. As if they are the first to discover it, when she is a renowned beauty. That sort of news is a favorite sport of country drawing rooms, and they should have heard of it long before ever seeing her here tonight in their brother the Viscount Highgarden’s house.

Or perhaps they mean to intimate it a surprise to find that Jaime Lannister, the one-handed Lord Lannisport and heir to Casterly Rock, should have a handsome bride. Either way, he resents the insinuation. She is his wife. Of course she is to be admired.

In her new gown, Jaime must own, Sansa is remarkably pretty. The cerulean blue is a pleasing shade for her eyes, making them look almost blue-green, and her hair looks practically golden in the candlelight. The cut of her gown is not so childish as what she brought with her to Lannisport House either, though nothing like the daring fashions Jaime’s sister or Miss Tyrell wear. It suits her. She would not be at ease, he thinks, in something that drew that sort of attention.

“I did not realize an account of her appearance necessary, Miss Tyrell,” he says with a cock of his head.

“You’ve made her uncomfortable. Margaery teases, of course,” Loras says, leaning forward in his chair, pressing familiarly into Sansa’s space, as her gaze darts up to meet Jaime’s. “Pay no mind to my sister, Lady Lannisport.”

“Well, of course, I tease. That is my way, and I mean to make you my special friend. It’s such a pleasure to have a young person move into the neighborhood. You have done me such the favor, Lord Lannisport, in marrying and marrying well.”

Jaime grits his teeth. How else should the heir of Casterly Rock marry but well?

“Your approval is all I thought of in doing so, I’m sure.”

Margaery pays no mind to his reply, as she clutches Sansa’s arm once more. “Think of all the mischief we shall get into together.”

“I should be glad of your friendship, Miss Tyrell. My sister, however, would be a better companion for mischief. I am not so bold as to tempt trouble.”

In Winterfell, one sister likely to tend towards mischief more than the other, though the substance of that mischief is of a different sort than Miss Tyrell has in mind, Jaime gathers.

“Oh! A sister! Did you hear that, Loras? She might do for you. None can tempt Loras away from his life as a bachelor. What is your sister’s name, pray?”

Sansa’s eyes find Jaime’s once more, and he clamps a hand down on Loras’ shoulder. “The younger Miss Stark is too young for you, Tyrell.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Margaery says, bringing her cut crystal punch cup up to her unusually dark lips.

Cersei would say she tints them with carmine salve. Few are so lovely as his sister without artificial intervention.

“You do mean to invite her to Lannisport, don’t you? Is she as pretty as you? What is your opinion, Lord Lannisport? Are all the Stark girls this lovely, do you think?”

Sansa is not the preening young bride he thought he might be bringing home. The attention tonight makes her blush, but he can see that it has tipped over from pleasing to a source of discomfort, as Mr. Tyrell surmised.

Jaime firmly squeezes Loras’ shoulder and then releases it, as he extends his arm for Sansa. “Lady Lannisport is without equal.”

Sansa takes his hand and stands, looking more relieved to join him than perhaps she has been previously in their short marriage.

“And we won’t have the privilege of seeing Lady Lannisport’s family for some time yet. You will have to wait to meet the famed sister.”

“Oh, rethink your plans, Lord Lannisport. She will be lonely for her family, so far from home.”

“First things first. We mean to host my sister and her husband shortly.”

Mr. Tyrell straightens up in his chair, as his sister’s brows creep up her forehead. “Have you had the pleasure of meeting the Marchioness, Lady Lannisport? At your wedding, perhaps?”

“Not as of yet,” Sansa replies, as he tucks her into his side.

“Well,” Margaery says, looking to her brother, who refuses to meet her eye.

“Excuse us,” Jaime says, as draws Sansa away to put an end to whatever else Miss Tyrell might take it into her head to say.

“You have friendly neighbors.”

“Those two? Yes, quite. So friendly that you began to look as if you required rescue.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

The way her lips part and she scans his face makes him feel queer.

He’s had enough of company.

“Shall we call it a night? Say our goodbyes to the host and asked for our carriage to be brought around?”

“If you like,” she says in the mild way he’s grown accustomed on the rare occasion he seeks her opinion.

She never has one. Or keeps it to herself. Except when it comes to books. She thinks there are too many grand histories in his library and requested permission to write to a bookshop in London to address the issue. He told her she needn’t seek permission in such things and to do as she pleases.

“It’s for the best. I have lost the family fortune tonight, watching you, while I should have been keeping track of what cards had been played.”

Her mouth twitches, but her eyes do not go wide in that flash of innocence he sometimes sees in her. A few weeks ago, she would have misunderstood his jest. Either she understands him better or she has gathered enough from their household expenses to know that it would take more than one evening of cards for Jaime to lose it all. Heavens know Tyrion has tried.

Either way, he is content to hand her into the carriage and bid the neighbors goodnight, no matter how much he dreaded the ride over alone with her.

He flops inelegantly back against the bench seat opposite her and gives a knock on the roof. The prosthetic is good for some things—it makes for a noisy announcement of their readiness—and the carriage lurches forward.

She peeks through the window back at Highgarden, as they pull away, looking as curious as a child kneeling at the sash.

“Are the Tyrells a new family?” she asks over the rumble of the carriage.

It is rumored that Willas’ great-grandfather was a steward to the now extinct Gardener family. If so, they have certainly risen since then. Jaime's father considered Willas for Cersei at one time, but the accident made her unwilling to concede to the match.

“Yes. Not as old as yours or mine. New and obscenely wealthy.”

With a tilt of her head, she wrinkles her nose at him. In an instant she goes from childlike interest to ladylike scorn. He can picture a similar scolding expression on Catelyn, whom Sansa takes after in many respects. He has offended her: no doubt the Starks don’t practice that sort of frank talk before their daughters.

He watches her, head rocking with the rhythm of the carriage; watches as she realizes with growing self-consciousness that he isn't going to look away. Under his protracted scrutiny, she lifts a hand to the blue bandeau adorned with a rose that holds back her thick curls.

“Nothing is amiss with your person. Tell me, what did you think of them?”

“The Tyrells? I liked them well enough.”

“They’re no great friends of mine.” Jaime’s only true friend is his brother. Otherwise, there have only been men he admired. All were men he served alongside, who served with honor. Most are either retired now or dead. “It would be very boring if you were always to be polite with me. You can be direct.”

“I wouldn't mind a female friend, but directness seems a family trait with them.”

“Yes. Though I wouldn’t trust everything they say.”

“No, you're right. They were trying to win my favor with all their silly compliments,” she says with a shake of her head.

She lifts her finger to the window and brushes the glass with the curve of her knuckle. He hasn’t provided her with an audience, preferring to keep to the next room over, while she plays, but it is no wonder she excels at the pianoforte. She has narrow, elegant fingers, long enough to reach the keys with ease.

It’s difficult to make out in the moonless gloom of the carriage, but a dull flush shows on her cheeks. The same as when Loras brought her the cup of punch.

Jaime frowns. “Don’t fall in love with Mr. Tyrell.”

She pulls her hand away from the window. “I would never.”

“Well, that’s a good girl,” he says, sighing, as he shifts his leg out further in the space between them. The toe of his shoe brushes under her skirts, which she notes with a quick side-glance. “Their compliments though profuse are not without merit.”

Yes, she’s properly blushing now, as the Tyrell’s rose garden goes buy in a murky blur. Only the pinks and creams of the blooms stand out in the wild dark growth.

“I only preach caution, because they are out for whatever they can get, the Tyrells.”

“And you were not?”

Her reply shocks him into a bark of laughter. “Not me. My father.” He brings his hand up to scruff his chin. “Brave of you to say it, however.”

“You said to be less polite.”

He taps his foot, disturbing the hem of her gown, but she does not look down to acknowledge the movement.

“Why is Lord Highgarden not married if he has the means?”

“He is crippled. You noticed, of course.”

Her shoulders rise and fall a small measure. “Yes, but what does that matter? He has a great deal to recommend him.”

“To a young lady? His leg was crushed in a riding accident.”

“Yes, he walks with a cane.”

“And a brace besides.”

Which he conceals better beneath trousers now that the fashion has changed. It's too bad a glove does not fully disguise Jaime's injury.

“That’s nothing.”

He sinks further into the bench, his attention fixed on her for a sign of cruelty lurking beneath her composed sweetness. “Hardly nothing, when he can’t sit a horse.”

“Some young ladies don’t care for riding.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Though Arya has a better seat than I do,” she says, mouth tipping up into a shy smile.

He pushes the urge to offer her a proper lady's horse down. It wouldn't do to appear anything but aloof in the face of this unexpectedly stiff defense of his crippled neighbor. Jaime isn't desperate for anything, including acceptance from this unwanted corner.

“Regardless, I’m sorry he suffered. No one should discount a good man because of an injury.”

Cersei’s words at seeing the stump ring in his ears, and he drums the fingers on his left hand against the bench.

“What would you say makes a good man, my lady?”

She shifts on the bench with a shivery breath. “My father used to say I should want a husband who was brave and gentle and strong. I didn't think much of that at the time, and I don’t know enough of the world, I suppose, to say whether he was right or not. Perhaps I am wrong about Lord Highgarden as well. I am wrong a great deal.”

Jaime hums.

He knew Sir Eddard. Some. Enough to know Sir Eddard would be unlikely to class his daughter’s new husband as a good man. _Brave, gentle, strong_. He would probably assess him as lacking at least on one of those counts. Perhaps a second as well, since Jaime lost his dominant hand.

“Lord Highgarden invited me to go hawking with his sister anytime I liked,” she says, her tone turning light and chirpy. Presumably anything she says henceforth is unlikely to be of interest. “That recommended him to me instantly.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. Do you like falconry, my Lord?”

Willas Tyrell is known locally for his love of hawking and breeding excellent hounds. Jaime never had an interest in the sport.

“Not particularly. Perhaps if you go hawking with him, you can report back on whether he is truly no less of a man as a result of his accident.”

“I won’t go if you don’t wish it.”

“I don’t care,” he says, refusing to look down at the prosthetic that suddenly feels heavier than usual at the end of his arm.

He looks down at it in abject self-pity, the air of breezy indifference he wishes to project will be spoilt.

He doesn’t care. Not about Willas Tyrell and his hawks. Or whether Sir Eddard and his daughter, who professes to think no less of a man for being a cripple, think him a good man. He is many things, but that is not one of them.

She makes some indistinct sound, wets her lower lip, and glances out the carriage window. “I would happily have my brother Robb back from the battlefield missing a leg.”

“Or a hand?”

His chest tightens.

Pure nonsense to ask it, for he knows she despises him, the man who took her from her home and her mother and forced her to confront a lifetime married to a man who cannot love her.

And her answer shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t.

She turns to him with guileless softness shaping her rosebud mouth and lining her brow. “Yes. A hand too.”


	4. The Visit

The arrangements for this visit from the Marquess and Marchioness of Dragonstone have been extensive. Not that Jaime saw to any of them personally, but he was aware in a vague way of the scurrying of the servants and his wife’s fretful efforts in the weeks leading up to their arrival. Jaime’s only words on the subject were to remind his bride that she was to make them feel at home.

A reminder she did not especially need. Since, with every visitor from the neighborhood they receive, he is made increasingly more aware of his wife’s ability to serve as an exemplary hostess.

In light of that fact, he advised her not to become the most popular lady in the neighborhood. Insisting he’d tire of the interruptions to his busy schedule of doing nothing, should there be a constant stream of adoring neighbors parading through their door. While her response—a small twitch of the mouth that he counts as a smile—brought him some small degree of pleasure, the warning that will likely do no good. For though he cannot tell if she takes any real delight in people’s eagerness to befriend her or whether it is feigned, it seems a hopeless eventuality that they will come regardless of whether she desires them or not.

People are eager to love his wife.

His sister, however, is no mere visitor from the village, ready to be charmed by a gentle smile and a warm welcome. Not even thoughtfully chosen creature comforts and an elegantly set table will win her over, though in her own home she takes great pride in displaying everything that can be counted as the best.

Cersei never forgets a slight, whether real or imagined, and it is evident upon their arrival to Lannisport House, despite all Sansa’s efforts, Cersei views Sansa’s marriage as a slight to her person.

As much as Cersei’s marriage has been a slight to Jaime. His sister’s husband outranks him—every bloated, drunken stone of him, which has steadily increased with every passing year since they were wed. A man of such rank was a glorious coup for Jaime’s father, who secured the match for his daughter after an even more promising match to Rhaegar Targaryen fell through. Ever since, Jaime has been faced with the galling reality of sharing his favorite sibling with a womanizing halfwit to whom he is meant to defer socially.

The feeling is most certainly mutual, seeing as Robert red-facedly demanded Jaime leave his house, when last they parted.

This visit is meant to assuage any unpleasantness. Thus far, they have made precious little progress towards that end, however.

It is better, therefore, when the Marquess overindulges and cannot rise the next morning. Passed out in his bed and snoring, he is incapable of suggesting to Jaime that they hunt and then boast the remainder of the day of his prowess at hounds and horses after looking a fool in his too tight chamois shooting coat with gold buttons absurdly pulled asunder from bloat. No, it is best he stays with the curtains drawn in the rooms Sansa arranged for him. Rooms that are separate from the Marchioness' under the advisement of Wat, who has some experience with the idiosyncrasies of the Baratheon clan.

It is best they all have a reprieve from his presence, however temporary. For, when evening comes, Lord Dragonstone will miraculously recover enough to heave himself from the bed and make his way downstairs to dine and drink in excess. He will be overly generous with the serving girls to Cersei's chagrin and he will laugh too loud at his own jokes. But for now, they are free of him, with his sister sitting at his side on the garden bench and Sansa sprawled a little inelegantly upon the grass in her white muslin gown with a modest fichu tucked into the bodice, hiding whatever might otherwise be exposed by her position.

Over the past hour, she has been assisting Tommen good-naturedly in some very irregular Trooping the Colour with an array of toy soldiers and a smart looking doll that seems to have appeared out of nowhere to function as queen of their imaginary country. Neither of them has ever witnessed or taken part in the process, so it stands to reason that Jaime notes improper procedure afoot. Initially, he considered speaking up, but ultimately demurred. Watching the developing scene in contemplative silence instead, he leans into the armrest of the bench.

Of some note, he determines that the queen acts very much like the young lady voicing her. Which gives rise to some musings on what Britain would be like ruled by a queen. Not just any queen, a queen like his wife. It could not be worse than the current first gentleman of England's regency, after all. While Britain perhaps would not be the most imposing of empires under the governance of such a queen, she might become the most well-liked. Just as Sansa seems well on her way to becoming the queen of the county.

Sansa is very good with Cersei’s youngest, who is a gentle child Robert wants to see sent to Harrow School next term to make a man of him. Jaime doubts Tommen would flourish under the appalling system there. He would make for easy prey. He is much more well-suited for marching toy soldiers before Sansa’s ever-watchful gaze with Papworth’s splashing fountain providing an oddly tuneful accompaniment in the background.

“You’ve become so invested in child’s play, since last we were together,” his sister says, tapping his wrist with her closed fan.

It dangles from her wrist, tied with a silken ribbon in a green that he knows she’s chosen to match her eyes. Cersei is vain, painfully so. But she has good reason to think highly of her beauty.

He looks up from where her fan brushes his cuff and is greeted by his sister’s arched look.

“Is it the company you keep?”

“No, I was lost in thought,” he says, shifting on the bench with a one-handed adjustment of his coat.

“I doubt that. You have never been a great thinker, Jaime.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Thank you.”

“Well, don’t take it amiss. I am the most like Papa. Even he must own that, don’t you think?”

No, he doesn't think, but he also knows better to voice as much. Tyrion would rise to the bait, but Jaime has never sought to rile his sister the way their younger brother does.

Cersei doesn’t lack for brains, but she is quick to anger and anger makes her impatient, compromising her judgment. No one would ever say that of their father.

“And you had other praiseworthy attributes, so it was no great loss in the scheme of things. Not everyone is born to be a great mind.”

“ _Had_ ,” he repeats with a glance to Tommen’s towhead and Sansa’s ginger bent together. His wife keeps her gaze resolutely down, ignoring Cersei’s sharp-tongued mockery. “No longer? My praiseworthy days are behind me then?”

“Yes, _had_. It would seem you have nothing better to do than to content yourself with childish frivolity,” she says, gesturing with the fan to the scene at their feet, “now that you’ve lost your profession.”

Not his profession—his hand. He knows her well enough to recognize her sortie for what it is.

It’s cruelly accurate, her assessment of what his life is like without his right hand. Though, it is not the childish game, which held Jaime’s attention. Though the irregularities and familiar ways of the queen drew his focus, while Cersei complained bitterly about her husband’s behavior the night previous and Sansa dutifully pretended she could not hear his sister’s mutterings, they could not hold it forever.

No, it was Sansa’s smile, that kept him watching their play. A smile warm enough to make apples of her cheeks. One which he has only seen her wear since Tommen’s arrival.

He envies it. Either because she is happy and he is not or because it is his nephew, a mere child, who makes it so. But why should he have such smiles from her, when he has done nothing to earn them? Tommen is at least pleasant.

Jaime was pleasant once. Or at least pleasant enough. Enough to turn the heads of young girls he had no intention of marrying. Because he had a profession in mind and already enough love in his life to be content. He had a devoted sister. That was worth more.

“What would you have me do instead, sister?”

“Don’t invite a lecture you don’t want.”

“Lecture away. I defy you to come up with a better way to spend such a fine day than with my family. Out of doors? The weather holding in spite of those clouds.”

It is one of the best parts of the garden. It was complete before his mother’s death. The arboretum just beyond them is planted with conifers and mixed deciduous trees, which runs south and east of the house, leading down to some good views of the park atop a brick ha-ha. She worked with Papworth on every detail right down to the vases and Irish yews that flank the Portland stone pond. Sansa sometimes sits outside here by herself, perched on the pond wall with a parasol blocking her face from his view at the window.

“Besides,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I take a keen interest in my nephew and his budding martial potential.”

“How curious,” she says with a purse of her dusty rose lips. “You never took an interest in him before.”

“That is hardly fair and you know it.”

Cersei insisted Jaime not overdo his attentions to Joffrey and Tommen, though she was less rigid in her resolve that he ignore Myrcella. Robert might not like his brother-in-law being overly attentive. He might take it amiss. Robert, who found their closeness bordering on unnatural in a brother and sister.

But Robert takes so little interest in his children, Jaime believes the man would have hardly noticed should someone else have stepped in. Nevertheless, Jaime is largely unbothered by the distance between himself and Cersei’s brood. Save for the fact that she never allowed him to hold Joffrey, her firstborn son, when he was a squalling infant. That was strictly forbidden. No matter how badly Joffrey turned out, the slight still smarts.

It is Cersei's loss anyhow, for he would have done better as a father in Robert's stead. Perhaps.

She lifts the fan to her lips. In another woman, that would be a flirtation. “Let’s leave the children to their play, hmm?”

 _The children. Your child bride. That infant whom Father has sitting at your table_.

She’s said all that and more about his wife out of Sansa’s earshot. There’s been a fair share said in her presence too.

Cersei is none too fond of Sansa’s youth. There is no reason for her to be jealous, however. When she Cersei, Jaime is certain she was the most beautiful woman in Britain. Time has passed, but she is ageless in his eyes, the same great beauty.

“Walk with me,” his sister says, this time tapping his thigh with her fan.

He’s let her snide comments go, so as to avoid further angering his sister. Anyone else and Jaime would put a stop to such talk immediately, he’s assured himself, while watching for some sign of how these insults affect his wife. As his wife, she deserves greater respect than Cersei means to grant her. But Cersei is a force, when she’s angry, and Jaime wants things to be right between them.

She is his twin, his equal, the only creature in this world he has ever truly loved. He hoped that she would arrive here and remember that it has always been the pair of them against the world. Her marriage to Robert did not alter their bond. Nor should his marriage or the loss of his hand. He needs that to be true, otherwise he is lost, untethered, without purpose. He’s only ever truly felt himself with a sword in his hand or at his sister’s side.

His wife lifts her head, looking up from the doll clutched in her hands for the briefest of moments and then back down again. Whatever she feels at Cersei’s relentless little digs, it does not register on her prettily blank face. One day hadn’t past since their arrival when Cersei airily told him his wife was a simpleton.

But Jaime doesn’t think she is in truth. He thinks there’s more going on behind her chirpy little responses and tidy manners than his sister guesses. Nothing ruthless like what plays behind his Cersei’s beauty. But something he hasn’t entirely worked out yet.

Maybe if he was more of a great mind, he thinks with a roll of his eyes, as he stands and offers his arm to his sister.

Time alone is what they need, so as to be as they always were. Time away from Sansa and Robert and Tommen. Then he will feel like some semblance of his former self.

But even as Sansa and Tommen are left behind them and could not be spied even if they were to look back over their shoulders, Jaime senses a tension in his sister. There exists between them an icy chill. It might be wiser to pretend not to notice and wait out her mood, but her unwillingness to be at ease with him, when he has counted on that comfort, is maddening. It rankles. It makes him reckless.

“Are you not happy here together?” he demands, irritation seeping into his tone. “Our mother planned every path, every room. We spent happy times here as children. I would think you could summon some small amount of pleasure for the occasion.”

“You would live in the past. I want to look to a better future, Jaime. For myself, for Tommen. I want more than pretty memories.”

The gravel under their feet crunches, as her pace steps up and he is drawn along with her. His pulse pounds quicker too.

“No, you mean to punish me for marrying.”

His sister shakes her head, making the golden ringlets on the sides of her head shiver. “I used to envy you, you know.”

“How is that?”

“As a man, you could do something, be something.”

“Britain’s greatest officer?”

“And why not? You could outshine anyone you wanted.”

“Just not with my brains.”

“Stop being petulant. I don’t feel sorry for you, when you had the whole world at your feet and I was merely a pawn to be played from the moment of our birth.”

“One Father played rather expertly.”

“Do you know what that’s like?” she asks, nostrils thinning, as the trees overhead throw her face into shadow.

“Obviously, yes, Cersei,” he says, but she speaks over him, her words clipped and fast, disregarding his response.

“Any use I might have been to this family, anything I might have accomplished after the moment of my being tied to Robert like a horse to a cart has been hampered by the fact that he is and always will be a buffoon. I am more than capable, and yet, rendered useless by my sex. I have nothing left to do other than help arrange marriages for my children and even in that I am the last consulted. It would be better if Robert died. I would make a very fine widow, don’t you think? Imagine my controlling his estates? Tommen is yet too young. I would have the control.”

It's a little unnerving, thinking of Cersei lording over tenants and villagers. He always thought it would be better if they could retire alone together to some seaside cottage, where the names they were born to would not dictate the course of their lives.

“Don’t ask me to do it. My shooting days are over, as you are ever eager to point out.”

He doesn’t miss the sidelong look she gives to his prosthetic. Inhaling to fight off the churn in his gut at her sneer, he tucks his arm behind his back.

“Don't be ridiculous. You needn’t kill him in a duel. That would draw much comment. A good stumble down a flight of stairs would do the trick. As drunk as he gets, no one would be surprised.”

He can’t tell whether she’s jesting or not. But she must be.

He grins over at her, turning a quarter turn to walk backwards with her arm still looped through his. “Hardly any honor in tripping a man, Cersei.”

“Of course, you’d say that. That’s one of your most annoying qualities: this incessant need to prove your honor. I believe you could have climbed higher in service were you more willing to play the game. A waste. You don’t have any honor anyway.”

“Perhaps not,” he says, his forced smile fading, as his footsteps slow.

“I thought you were willing to do anything for me.”

“I am. And anyway, you can’t ever be worthless, when you mean everything to me.” _Shouldn’t that be enough_ , he stops short of adding, to avoid sounding as pathetic as he feels under her withering look. “Everything to each other,” he says instead, opening the door for conciliatory words.

“Oh, well. What a comfort! When you have been made worthless too—crippled and married. To a Stark girl. That is the pinnacle of your assent, the eldest son of Tywin Lannister. Bravo. You’re another piece on the board that Papa has played.”

Jaime stops short and withdraws his arm, squaring up to her, as he tucks his second arm behind his back. She is tall for a woman, but he leans down the two inches necessary to bring himself eye to eye with her. “I didn’t have any more say in the matter than you did.”

“Didn’t you? A man of means and status?” she asks, looking him up and down. “You have no idea what it is to be a woman. None.”

“No, I can’t claim that, but Father controls the purse strings with me all the same. I did what was required. For the family. Same as you did.”

“I would have been bolder were I gifted with the opportunities afforded you by your manhood,” she says, pointing her closed fan at his chest. “It’s a shame really that things weren’t reversed in those respects. You could have worn the dress and I the uniform.”

He cocks his head. “I prefer you as a woman. A very handsome woman.”

“I don’t. Beauty fades.”

“Not yours. Anyway,” he says, turning on his heel to resume their walk without offering her his arm, “I resent your implications.” Something sharper than resentment turns his stomach. Something sickly. Something sour. “I’ve been plenty bold. I lost a hand for my boldness.”

She doesn't follow, but raises her voice to be heard as a he strolls purposefully forward. “Bolder in your choices since then, Jaime.”

“Well, I might have married her younger sister, I suppose, but she’s a proper little shewolf,” he shouts back.

She opens the fan with a sharp thwap and he stops, back to her. “That might have been preferable to this milquetoast girl. She belongs in a nursery, not a great house.”

He spins towards her. “What would you have had me do instead? Do tell.”

“Never mind,” she spits back, half of her face obscured by the Classical scene painted on her fan. “I can’t count on you.”

“I have assured you that nothing has changed between you and me. Not because of this marriage or any other reason.”

“But it _will_ change. It already has.” He moves to take a step towards her and she holds up her hand to stop him. “Men are weak.”

“I thought you wished you’d been born one.”

“I’d have been a better one.”


	5. The Game

Evenings are especially disagreeable with Lord Dragonstone present and Tommen’s absence making Lady Lannisport more withdrawn than usual. Not that Jaime would be particularly troubled by Sansa’s silence, save for the fact that Cersei will continually comment upon it. To respond negatively to Cersei's commentary upon his wife's conduct would anger his sister. To continue in silence, failing to agree with her, angers her too, however, and that’s how things have stood between them for days: Cersei testing his allegiance and Jaime doing his best to avoid her wrath.

He must avoid angering her. Otherwise, what was the point of her coming to Lannisport House? He merely wants her to realize that all is well between them, a wife not of his choosing is no threat, and she might leave Lady Lannisport alone without fear of what she means for their relationship. Then he might get back to having some sense of self and feel less like a boat cut adrift.

The arrival of his brother two days previous has done nothing to lessen the undercurrent that pervades family moments, however, since neither Tyrion nor Cersei can manage to be civil with each other. Indeed, knowing this to be true, Jaime would have never invited his brother to be here while Lord and Lady Dragonstone were visiting. It would seem he required no invitation: Tyrion showed up unannounced and rather too outwardly eager to reconnect with Lady Lannisport.

Cersei certainly has commented upon that—more than once—when she and Jaime have been alone. Inferring as much as possible in her commentary as possible. Tyrion wouldn’t do that to him. He does not act as he ought, in a myriad of ways, including with women, but he wouldn’t tread there. Surely.

With the addition of his brother, their evenings have markedly deteriorated, instead of improving with time. At least Robert succumbed to drink earlier than usual tonight—propped up in one of the chairs, arms hanging over the sides, head tipped back, and mouth agape—and Sansa retreated to a spot before the fire, book in hand. Her having some employment puts her attention elsewhere. When she is reading or plying her embroidery needle, it as if she goes away inside, which is a good enough thing to do so as to avoid unpleasantness. He’s fond of that little trick himself.

With Lord Dragonstone noisily asleep in the far corner, there is some chance they might all retire early, which would be most welcome. Or Sansa and Tyrion might retire early, which would leave him alone with Cersei. There is always a chance that this will be the time that things feel as they ought between them. He hangs upon that hope, his nerves worn thin with the pain of that hope.

Until his sister is the very one to interrupt his desire for a quick end to the night, proving once more that they are not operating as if of one mind. Not anymore.

Rising from the table at which the Lannister siblings are seated, she moves for the desk along the back wall with a clear aim in mind, which will do nothing but prolong the evening. Opening the front latch and lowering the lid, she calls over her shoulder, “Lady Lannisport, come join us at the table. We lack for a fourth, and I’ve a mind to play whist.”

His wife lowers her book into the lap of her gown of ivory silk and lifts her gaze. “Whist?”

“Yes, _whist_.”

“Forgive me, Lady Dragonstone, but I’m afraid I don’t play.”

Cersei turns, the deck clutched in her hands just as his brother nearly sputters on the port he has borne with him from the dining room. That is where they spent a brief time before joining the ladies, Robert guzzling one glass after another and Tyrion doing his best to keep up, while Jaime sat watching with his arms crossed. Heaven's knows what the ladies spoke of in their absence.

Either his brother is shocked by Lady Lannisport’s avowal or the nerve of Jaime's wife in refusing Lady Dragonstone anything. Very few refuse her, after all. They’re wise not to.

“Make an exception,” his sister says coolly.

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” his wife says with a little shrug of her shoulders that brings the decorative folds on the sleeves infinitesimally closer to her coral ear-bobs.

Cersei frowns and floats back to the table, gently placing the cards before herself, as she lowers herself back into her chair. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, you could.”

“You don’t play whist?” Tyrion asks with a loud clearing of his throat that earns a scowl from their sister.

“Must you?”

“Yes, sometimes it’s necessary, sister dear, to attend to one’s physical body. Even when you are as elevated a personage as yourself. You were saying, Lady Lannister?”

Sansa’s hand smooths over her open page. “No, never, Mr. Lannister.”

His brother sets his glass down. “You object to cards then? You consider it a vice, I suppose? Gambling. Chance. Lady Lannisport is _very_ pious,” he adds for Cersei’s benefit, imbuing his words with enough inflection to make plain his point.

The praise of her sister-in-law’s superior morality lands its mark, forcing Cersei to raise her teacup to her mouth to hide whatever expression Tyrion has managed to put there. No one succeeds quite so well in needling their sister as Tyrion.

“No, it’s not that,” Sansa says, reaching for her ribbon marker on the striped upholstery. She marks her page and closes the book without setting it aside. “I don’t mean to give offense, for I have nothing against the pastime. I don’t object to others enjoying it. I’m simply happier with a book or my embroidery.”

Cersei arches her pale brows. “Or you can’t afford the stakes.”

“I don’t think that is a concern presently. Lady Lannisport can afford whatever she likes,” Tyrion points out.

“It simply has been my preference,” Sansa finishes, seemingly untouched by the reference to the Stark family’s financial circumstances.

Cersei lowers her cup to the level of her bosom, where the lace trims the sea-green of her gown and a pearl and ruby cross necklace hangs just above—a symbol of faith if not a true indicator of one in his sister's case. “How very independent minded of you.”

It’s a condemnation dressed up as a flatly voiced bit of admiration. He’s sure Sansa knows as much, but her face remains placid, as she swivels in place towards the pianoforte.

“I’d be happy to play for you, instead, Lady Dragonstone, Mr. Lannister, if you like.”

“Then you must sing. She has the prettiest voice. Voice like an angel. You did say that, didn’t you, brother?” Tyrion asks, turning his mismatched eyes on Jaime with an unmistakable twinkle.

Jaime has thought it. Or something along those lines—he isn’t accustomed to using, much less thinking, saccharine terms like angelic. But, he can’t remember ever telling his brother or any other living soul how pleasant he finds listening to his wife sing and play even if it is from the next room over. There is a strong chance, however, Tyrion heard his wife’s singing during the course of their earlier acquaintance and he’s drawn his own conclusions about her talents. It would suit his purposes to ascribe his own views to Jaime, so as to stir up trouble.

His brother is too crafty for his own good. Or for Jaime’s chances at remaining in his sister’s good graces.

“Has she entertained you yet, sister? I’ll happily accept your offer, Lady Lannisport on your reputation of greatness alone.”

Cersei sets her cup down hard, her usual grace elapsed by a fit of pique that sloshes some of the contents onto the table. The color is all wrong, pooling on the edge, and he wonders what his sister has added to her tea. Something she carries in her beaded, monogrammed reticule perhaps.

Tyrion tosses her a handkerchief she ignores.

“I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

His eyes rake over her, looking for some hint of what is off with her besides her rising anger. The tip of her nose is rosy, something he noticed at dinner but attributed to the warmth from the fire. The day was warm, and yet, Wat does insist on fires at night, unless it was an exceptionally hot day.

Housekeepers are notoriously high-handed in Jaime’s experience—Wat is no different.

“But, I have no interest in concertos at present, and you’ll ruin our evening if you insist on refusing me,” his sister presses.

Tyrion gestures towards the sleeping giant of a man, whose only contribution to the conversation has been a rattling background noise coming from his open mouth. “If you are so keen on playing, wake up your husband, Lady Dragonstone. There is your fourth, and he’s an eager gambler, hmm?”

Cersei lowers her chin to look down her nose at their brother. “No one wants that, _Tyrion_.”

Indeed, Jaime is the last one to wish for Cersei’s husband to be awakened for any reason. His being indisposed is always to be celebrated. In this case, at least his being brought into play would put an end to this present round of disagreements. It would inevitably lead to others arising, but Jaime prefers to deal with problems head on. Whatever the future consequences might be, he hasn’t much patience for considering them now. For the moment, his primary concern is to end the harassment of his wife, who intends no trouble.

“Wake him, Cersei. He’s never said no to a chance to make a bet.”

“Wake him?”

Cersei’s glare would frighten some men away from the table, but Jaime rises to the challenge, leaning with his left arm onto the table and raising his brows to see if she will flinch at his prosthetic propped upon it. She does not. It is a draw for two too well-matched from birth.

“You have an opinion on this, do you, Jaime? You, who have been so noticeably quiet tonight. Why not use your newfound voice to invite Lady Lannisport to join us? Surely she couldn’t decline then.”

“Leave her be,” he says, leaning in closer. “She wasn’t taught.”

He’s refused her command. Something he’ll pay for: his sister's resentful temperament doesn’t easily let these sorts of disappointments go. It is exactly what he didn’t want from this visit.

There is a stretch of silence between them, filled only by the soft ticking of the gilded clock above the fireplace, counting off the seconds. He doesn’t retreat, but his foot begins to bounce, where its balanced on his knee, out of sync with the timepiece.

“Well, if that’s all it is, come be my partner, Lady Lannisport.” Tyrion lifts his glass to take another drink. He hums, and Jaime can sense his wife’s eyes dart to him and away, looking for something. A savior, perhaps. “I shall teach you.”

“You know that isn’t how it’s done,” Cersei says, tapping one elegant finger on the rim of her teacup.

“No, but why stand upon ceremony? We need not draw for partners. Lady Dragonstone, you prefer to be teamed with our brother anyway. That is always the way with them,” he says, looking over his shoulder at Sansa. “And I acknowledge openly that I despise being paired with my sister.”

“You’re insufferable,” Cersei says, reaching for the deck.

“Yes, you see the feeling is mutual. You’ve found yourself introduced most unwillingly, I expect, into such a brilliant disaster of a family, Lady Lannisport. I don’t envy you in the least.”

Sansa’s face is still a mask, from what he can make out from his peripheral vision, but her cheeks are flushed. No doubt the Starks never spoke to each other the way his family is accustomed to doing so. His brother is correct, no one would envy her if they knew the whole truth.

“Now, come sit with us and we’ll have a jolly time in spite of everything. Move over, Jaime,” Tyrion says with a wave of his hand, “she’ll need to sit opposite me if we’re to be partnered.”

Jaime stretches out in the chair, extending his leg to adopt a leonine posture, so as to emphasize he has no intention of moving from his current spot. Not for a game of whist, not for anything.

His brother, however, shows no inclination to take a well-placed hint.

“It isn’t complicated like Quadrille,” Tyrion says with a pat for the table.

“Thank heavens. Quadrille would be asking too much of such a novice,” Cersei says, voice dripping with condescension, as she begins to shuffle the deck, confident that they will all bend to her will eventually.

“For shame. Lady Lannisport is perfectly capable, I have no doubt. You know, Lady Dragonstone, this puts me in mind. Just this morning, Wat was saying how like our mother, the new Lady Lannisport is.”

“Wat is a simpleton,” Cersei says, punctuating her assessment with a hard tap of the deck.

“One of the servants will hear you, Cersei,” Jaime says with another glance at her teacup.

He doesn’t need dissension in ranks of the servants. Especially not when Lady Lannisport has the household running more smoothly than it has in ages. That makes things so much easier for them all; he would hate to trade it for a mumbling group of complainers, discontented by the dynamics upstairs.

His sister begins to deal cards, though there is still no fourth. “And what of it? They’re servants. What do I care if they hear me?”

“Mother dominated at Quadrille, did she not?” Tyrion asks brightly.

Jaime’s chest expands, apprehension coursing through him at his brother’s mention of their mother. It’s almost a forbidden topic of conversation; particularly when it comes to Tyrion giving voice to it. If Jaime could launch across the table and cover his brother’s mouth with his remaining hand, he would. It would create a scene. He wonders idly whether his wife would receive such an occurrence with this same measured quietude. Cersei would be amused.

“How would you possibly know anything about Mother?” Cersei demands, slapping a card face down.

“It seems to me someone remarked upon it once.” His brother blithely ignores the allusion to their mother’s death in the child-bed and his supposed guilt in the matter, reaching again for his glass. “Do you mean to be the banker, Cersei? I might have to object. I’d rather deal to determine who takes that role, so as to have some small chance of not being cheated by you.”

“Are you going to allow him to speak to me like that?” Cersei says, whipping around in her chair, so the golden curls at the side of her face bounce in impotent fury. “Lord of the house?”

“Oh, have another drink and sheathe your claws, Lady Dragonstone,” Tyrion says.

“ _Jaime_?”

Jaime grinds his teeth. “I’ve never had any success in muzzling either of you.”

His twin narrows her eyes at him. “Tell Lady Lannisport to sit for a game. Your brother is so very eager to teach her.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Then _you_ should teach her if you’re can’t abide him doing it. Though I must say, jealousy is such a petty emotion.”

Tyrion snorts and a log in the fire collapses, sending up a shower of sparks. As if touched by the embers, Sansa jerks to her feet, book in hand.

“Lady Lannisport does as she likes. Cards are not to her liking,” Jaime says, extending his left hand to stop her from approaching without actually looking her way.

If she needs a savior, he'll play the part. This ends here. Immediately.

“But you are her teacher are you not?” Cersei tips her head to the side, a poisonous smile turning up one corner of her lovely mouth. “Lessons in any number of things with the little, sweet Lady Lannisport.”

“That’s enough.”

The bark of his voice tightens the fine lines around Cersei’s eyes.

He turns in time to see Sansa bending to place her book upon the side table closest to her. “You don’t have to play cards or the pianoforte or anything.”

No wife of his will be commanded. Not while he has voice to forbid it.

“Thank you, Lord Lannisport,” she says.

For all the smooth courtesy of her speech and manner, there is a neediness in her countenance, when she looks his way, as if seeking something in him. Some safe harbor he has given her no right to expect. If what he spies is real, it is not so different from the desperate need he feels , whenever he is alone with his thoughts and given space to realize the scope of his loss.

“I confess, I have no intention of playing. For, you must all forgive me, but I believe I foolishly exposed myself to too much sun today.” Her hand floats to her forehead and back down. “I’m quite tired out if you’ll excuse me, Lady Dragonstone, Mr. Lannister, Lord Lannisport,” she says with a curtsy.

No one responds. It’s just the clock ticking, Robert’s rattle, and the noiseless departure of his wife from the room, kid slippers moving with graceful silence over the oriental rug.

When she’s disappeared around the frame of the door, Cersei lifts her cup. “She’ll freckle with that skin.”

Sansa can’t have been far enough that Cersei’s stridently voice opinion won’t have reached her ears. And if his sister had held her tongue, he might have stayed. He might have considered his part played in this squabble and depend upon his wife's ability to rebound in the privacy of her room.

But she did not hold her tongue, and the red heat Jaime feels creeping up the back of his neck urges him to move.

“And what if she does?” Jaime says, pushing back from the table with a shove that screeches the chair’s legs over the floor.

“Careful, sister. Go too far and you'll lose your greatest champion. Best not come between a man and wife,” Tyrion lectures, smiling as if he knows every log he adds to the fire will only cause his sister's flame to burn hotter.

“Jaime must admit it too: it would spoil her. She’ll look like a proper northern milk maid. Those Starks have always been coarse.”

“Poor, dear sister,” Tyrion says, as Jaime strides from the room, the heels of his boots echoing, “jealous of Lady Lannisport’s porcelain skin. It is shockingly fine, isn’t it?”

But he is not yet over the threshold, hasn’t yet managed to quit this scene, when his sister calls after him, loudly enough that Lord Dragonstone begins to snort himself awake. “Off to nightly lessons?”

Certainly not.

And yet, he pauses, his skin tight and hot, ready to turn and bark back a promise as good as a threat to do just that.

Three deep breaths, the sort a soldier takes to calm a jumping breast in order to aim and shoot, and he forges forward. Stomping up the stairs, he looks up to note his wife's silhouette is not climbing the treads above him, having presumably hurried from his family in all haste.

He could go to her. Not for the purpose Cersei so crudely inferred, but he could go to her. She might be upset. It would be a more than reasonable reaction to the evening’s events. After he completes his nightly rituals and she has undoubtedly finished with her toilette, he might go to check on her and provide whatever apologies or comfort he is ill-suited to give.

Or he might make a show of going to her room to spite his sister downstairs.

Neither intention is incompatible with the other objective, so he plows through awkwardly removing his tall polished boots, coat, Brummel neckcloth, crimson embroidered waistcoat, braces, pantaloons, stockings, and shirt with no small degree of determination to get through it without the aid of his valet Alton. It’s enough of a challenge even after all these months, since the battlefield amputation of his right hand, that he expects to find Sansa long through with her toilette by the time he has donned his nightgown, dressing gown, and silk slippers and made his way down the hallway to her door.

He does not expect to find her brush in hand, when he raps on the door and opens it after a lengthy pause.

“Lord Lannisport,” she says, pulling the brush into her bosom, where her hair cascades loose over one shoulder of her nightrail.

Her crown of hair isn’t a fashionable color, but the dark amber sheen of it, reflecting the guttering candlelight from beside the bed, is rather remarkable. Particularly against the white cotton of her high-necked boudoir attire. One might even say it is striking.

Jaime's education did not tend towards much history, but he knows enough of his kings and queens to know that some of the greats were ginger haired like his wife.

He holds the door partially ajar, momentarily thrown into indecision by her lack of a dressing gown or wrapper and this unaccustomed feeling of _noticing_ her. “I interrupted you. Shall I call for your lady’s maid?”

“No, pray don't, my lord. I sent her away.”

He lets the door close with a solid thump. It's stupid, standing there without purpose, so he takes a few steps towards the middle of the room. It brings him close enough to her that he see signs of redness around his wife’s eyes and white tracks down her cheeks. She showed no emotion downstairs, but alone here in her room, it has been a different story.

That is why he came here, after all: to see if she was well and if she was not, do what he could.

“Why is that, Lady Lannisport?”

“I have no need for head or hand massages and I am perfectly capable of combing out my own hair.”

It's a little petulant. A reply that betrays her age and the stress of the evening. He likes her cool-headed strength, so different from his own. There's a certain charm to seeing signs of what lies beneath too, since he is the only one at present to gain access to these chinks in her wall.

“So I see. And yet, no use for her at all?”

“I acquitted myself well enough, as you can see,” she says with some hint of cheek that makes his mouth twitch.

“Brella is a proper French maid. Those are hard to come by presently.”

Given the situation on the Continent, most households have taken to hiring Englishwomen to fill the role and merely call the girls by French names to cover for the embarrassing lack of the real thing.

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Lord Lannisport,” she says, taking one barefoot step back away from him.

He frowns. “No?”

“No, you’ve been very kind.”

The sentiment forces a sharp exhalation of a laugh from his already tight chest. “Come now. Hardly.”

Her throat rolls above the neck ruffle on her nightrail. “You did say you wouldn’t disturb me here, my Lord.”

“Yes, I did.”

Her chest rises and falls a little too quickly, something he’d rather not notice in her current state of undress, but then, a glance away from her form towards the curtained bed is equally unsettling. Coming here was ill-advised, he's gathering, but he doesn’t like to back down from anything once he’s charged into the fray.

“And I appreciate that kindness given… our circumstances. I'm grateful for your patience if you will extend it a bit further.”

His prosthetic held behind his back, he rocks slightly on his heels. Her gratitude is more disconcerting than her _dishabille_. He didn’t draw these lines between them for her benefit. He drew them for his own. Out of resentment. Out of a lack of interest. As a form of rebellion against his domineering father.

But what part his father played in their coming together matters less with every passing day. Even if she was not his bride of choice, she is here in his life now. This lonely, quiet creature, who is supposed to be in his care. Doing right by her, whatever that means, is his duty.

“I haven't come to disturb your privacy, my lady. I came to see if you were unwell. The evening was unpleasant.”

“Quite well, my lord.”

The lie so smoothly delivered makes him smirk. “Feeling very much like the triumphant hostess then?”

Her knuckles are white around the mother of pearl handle detail on her brush. “I hope I didn’t make your family uncomfortable by my retiring for the night. I am very tired, my lord, as I mentioned.”

“Yes, I can see you want me gone,” he says, nodding towards the door.

It's a queer thing. Her gratitude doesn't sit well, but any hint that his gesture of coming here isn't well-received does nothing for his temper either.

Never mind that he thought as much of spiting his sister as he did his wife’s frame of mind, when he fixed upon coming to her room. There is no way she could know that, and on the surface, it is a proper, gentlemanly act, seeking her out.

“You did swear it. That this space would be mine.”

He could insist. He is her husband. He could insist that appearances must be kept up. Either his brother—unlikely—or his sister might report back to his father that there is no real effort afoot in Lannisport House at producing heirs for their pedigreed lineage, unless they provide some evidence, though it be a sham, of their being truly man and wife. They could spend an awkward night in her bed, back to back, to prove a point. Two if need be. He's slept closer with men who did not smell near as sweet as his wife.

“And what would a gentleman be without his word, hmm?” he says with a nod. “No, of course you may have your privacy. I have no desire to tread upon it.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Her breathy exhale punctures his ballooning irritation.

They are two sad creatures, who are best separated by a hall. His best championing of her would be to urge his visitors to leave, perhaps. Not in hanging on her doorstep, giving her reason to fear for the sanctity of her person.

Duty bends him to a different purpose.

“Yes, goodnight, Lady Lannisport.”


	6. The Pianoforte

The sounds of his wife’s playing greet Jaime, as he enters through a rear door of the house, having handed off his horse to a stable hand by the mill pond and stalked up the hill on foot. It follows him up the stairs, while he tugs his cravat free in anticipation of shedding his clothes for the copper tub he asked the footman to bring into his bedroom. After a long ride, there is nothing quite so refreshing as a bath, particularly on a day as warm as today, which has made the starch in his cravat go completely limp; and on this day, when he sends the servant away, who has poured the last large pail of warmed water hauled up by the footman, he commands him to leave the door cracked. So he might be heard if he requires something further is what he claims. When in reality, it has occurred to him, while pulling his linen shirt over his head, that with the door open, the sound of her playing might continue to find him in a distant way here too.

Even as he lowers himself in to his shoulders and stares forward at the screen painted with ruby bottomed cherubs, he can hear her. Propping one leg on the rim of the linen lined tub, he sinks lower. After the day’s physical exertion, he can almost forget the missing part of him. Submerged in the water, eyes closed, and the sounds of a sonata washing over him, his body goes out of focus, his mind shimmery like a mirage. He spent some hours after the battle, where he was only partially lucid, where he did not remember what he had lost. There was no wife playing a pianoforte in the camp hospital tent, however.

The image of her, brush clutched to her chest and highlighted by low light, appears in his mind’s eye, as it sometimes does unbidden.

He sinks lower still, until the water swallows all sound.

Dressed once more with the assistance of Alton and left standing alone before his looking glass, he tugs at his jacket sleeve with one hand. His body is once more inescapable from the tips of his still damp hair to his stump. He tugs again, unsuccessful in covering where the false hand emerges from the ruffle of his shirt cuff.

Still she plays.

Walking beyond the screens placed about his bath, he follows the path Alton has just cut in leaving his master to his own devices, and pulls open his bedroom door with more force than necessary. The sound of her playing swells, as he enters the hallway and approaches the stairs. It grows with every step he takes down the elaborate stairwell, passing landscape and portraits collected over decades and transferred here upon his reaching his majority and being gifted Lannister House to establish his own household. If Cersei had not yet married, when the time came, he would have invited her to join him here, establishing a residence together, but she was already gone and he had naught to do but pursue a profession or be faced with the gaping maw of emptiness.

Casterly Rock did not suffer from the removal of even this substantial number of priceless decorations. Nor did his father much suffer from Jaime's removal, since he reigns over his estate far better than he judges his heir shall ever manage. His father intends on living forever, Jaime suspects. If anyone is capable of achieving immortality, Tywin Lannister is a likely enough candidate.

There is a very fine pianoforte at Casterly Rock. A beautiful harpsichord as well with an elaborately painted cabinet. No one plays them now: they sit unused, for his father is not wont to entertain. There are no young hands to sit before them; no one in residence or visiting to exhibit their talents—or lack thereof.

Sansa would make good use of those carefully selected instruments were she ever to be the mistress of that house. For now, however, she is the mistress of this one, and based solely on the time he has been privy to her efforts, he supposes she has been sitting at the pianoforte in the northern wing for well over an hour at least. One song bleeds into the next without the accompaniment of her voice, which surely would tire over such a lengthy session.

He might have stayed in his room, stewing over his losses and failures, an indulgence in protracted mourning, but even in his room, he would have faced her orchestration of his life. Perhaps for the rest of the day, the sounds of her playing would have colored his every dark thought or continually turned his mind to her. Until she was forced to stop, when they came together to dine, having dispensed entirely with the pitiful habit of taking supper in his room alone.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, he strides for the drawing room. Adjusting his jacket once more at the single breast placket, he stands at attention in the open doorway, finally looking upon the source of this afternoon’s musical accompaniment.

Head inclined over the pianoforte and back to him, there is no reason for her to be aware of her audience. He’s never made his presence known, while she played. But they’ve been alone here in Lannisport House for five days, following the removal of his family, and skirting around her presence suddenly feels more a challenge than ever it was prior to their visit.

She takes up no more space than before: she is still a slim, tall young lady with an elegant neck and girlish shape evident enough beneath her column gowns. Despite today’s performance, she is no more demanding a presence than before. And yet, he is increasingly aware of her—during the day, at night, even with a hallway between them. Being alone with her suddenly makes her feel everywhere and all at once.

What good then does shutting oneself up in one’s room do, when he can’t forget her? He’s never much liked the notion of being caged anyway. It doesn't suit a lion.

He leans into the frame of the door, crossing one foot over the other. He knows this one—the _Piano Sonata No. 14_. Beethoven. Exceptionally popular. Despite this first movement sounding every bit the funeral march.

Craning the his head to the side, he pushes his chin into the stiff collar of his jacket until his neck cracks. Stiffness lingers in some joints, left over from his ride and not fully soothed by even his bath. A sign of age perhaps—a condition from which his wife does not suffer.

He’s already come this far, he resolves, letting the weight of his body carry him off the door frame to make his way over to the pianoforte. Without ceasing the slow, heavy movement of her fingers over the black and white keys, she lifts her gaze and lowers it again, returning to her task just as quickly. Even as he stands in great ceremony before her, her confidence doesn't flag. Or as he joins her on the bench, his prosthetic on the corner of the cabinet steadying himself to slide in alongside her.

With a slow exhalation, she concludes a passage, though not the movement, and her fingers hover curled above the instrument as if in anticipation of something. Something from him, no doubt, some hint of why he has come unexpectedly to sit beside her.

A compliment might suit, he wagers. He was once rather good at flattering ladies, when it struck him to do so, and praise, when it is true, is not so hard to bestow.

“My brother is right: you’re very good.”

“Thank you, my lord. I practice a great deal.”

“I have ample evidence of that today.”

Her wrists pull back further, until her hands rest in her lap, one delicate hand placed over the other, pillowed in the gossamer-like fabric that overlays her white gown. “Do I disturb you, Lord Lannisport?”

“No, your practice is to good purpose. No one could find fault. It does make me wonder, however,” he says, pinching the leg of his trouser and pulling, “do you know any less maudlin tunes, my lady?”

“Yes,” she says, lifting her right hand to perform a quick arpeggio, “though I haven’t cause to play any in some time.” She punctuates her last word with a plink of the highest note, reaching across him to hit it. “The second movement is cheerier if you prefer.”

“Play as you see fit.”

“What should I play if not the sonata?”

“Dancing music?”

“I have no taste for that anymore.”

“Surely the departure of my family hasn’t brought on this dark mood,” he says, inclining his shoulder towards her. “The house is yours again. You might invite your admirers over for tea without fearing any shocking behavior from the natives.”

If she fills up the house with a parade of neighborhood ladies, they would at least not be the only two within these walls. It might be easier to ignore her presence if he knew he would have to sit with Margaery Tyrell, should it come into his mind to seek his wife out.

“I do miss Tommen,” she says, as the hall's tall-case clock sounds the hour.

“Do you?”

She taps out a repeating phrase, fingers arched and moving in parade like order back and forth. “He reminded me of my brothers,” she says without raising her voice over the felted hammers. “They were not so different in age. Softer perhaps. Tommen, I mean, was somewhat softer. My brothers were—”

Her fingers curl in to her palms.

This close, he can count her breaths.

“I would have thought a visit from your family would have lifted _your_ spirits, my lord,” she says, her tone shifting into something lighter.

He rocks his tailbone on the hard bench, unintentionally crushing the puffed sleeve of her gown with the upper part of his jacket. It makes a whispery sound he feels along his spine.

“You deemed them in need of lifting, did you?”

“Unless you are always sullen and that is just your way.” Her repeating pattern begins once more like a child's lesson. “We are not so familiar with each other yet that I should hardly dare judge.”

“Are you impugning my valiant efforts at being a cheerful bridegroom?”

“Never. Although, I may have noticed the last few weeks did not go so smoothly as you may have wished.”

Even his family’s departure was rent with disagreeable fussing, but at least their carriages pulling away put an end to it. Cersei might have stayed forever to haunt him with her taunts and recriminations. But a few well-placed words to Lord Baratheon and Jaime secured the promise of a hasty withdrawal, Lord Baratheon preferring to be on his own estate, killing his own birds whenever possible. Tyrion stayed one day longer but that wasn’t wholly disagreeable with his role as familial instigator negated by Cersei’s departure.

It was supposed to restore some peace of mind. Until he realized his mind would forever recall his having a wife nearby.

“With my family? What would give you that idea?” He hits the only key he knows, middle C, with his left middle finger, crossing his hand over hers. It causes an unpleasant dissonance that registers on her face with a twitch. “We hid it so well between all the bickering and sniping. I’m surprised you noticed.”

Her movements cease. “Was it because of me?”

Cersei despises his wife, so her very existence necessarily complicates their relationship. The fractures were there already, however, only waiting for a freeze and thaw to crack them wide open. That much became painfully evident, whilst he was convalescing at Lord Dragonstone's estate.

“It wouldn’t be charitable to lay that at your feet. You did your level-best, didn’t you?” he asks, stretching his right leg out beneath the instrument.

Her eyes cut towards him. It is almost an impish look. Almost.

“Not entirely.”

He grins. “But you _were_ quite kind to Tommen, my soft-hearted nephew.”

“That was a pleasure, not a chore.”

“You have a way with children,” he says, blurting out yet another thought that will endlessly recur to him of late, though he has no real interest in children personally.

Her head tips to the side, causing the coral teardrop earbob on her right ear to brush her neck. It sways above the high lace collar of her gown, and he watches the path of its small arc against her pale skin.

His mother had a pair of emerald earbobs given to her upon her marriage. They would not be the mode now, but if he wrote his father for them, Sansa could have them remade should she prefer something more fashionable. They would be striking with her complexion. His mother’s sapphire necklace would not be unbecoming resting against her bosom either. Especially with her blue eyes.

A wedding present made up of such family pieces would be late in coming at this date but perhaps not wholly unwelcome. Thus far, he has done very little for her. Another man of his station and living would have seen fit to drape his attractive wife in rare jewels long before now.

This close, there is something about her that stirs a hungry impulse that increases with every shift of her body. She smells of the Casterly Rock orangery—citrus oil and jasmine—something she’s dabbed behind her ears and brought out by the rush of her blood in her veins.

He hasn’t kissed his wife—not even the chastest of kisses—but he can picture it, leaning in here on the bench to press his lips to the flutter of her pulse.

“They only want kindness.”

He hums, eyes lifting from the punctured shadows thrown over her skin by her collar. Brain muddled by heated contemplation, he's lost the thread of the conversation.

“Children, my lord. They only want kindness.”

“Yes, as you say,” he says, adjusting his seat again, though with better care not to disturb her person.

“Are you fond of music?” she asks, bringing her hands back to the keyboard.

“You would have to be a great cretin not to take some enjoyment in music. Well-executed music especially.” His disability is of the physical kind, not the mental. “I’ve listened to you. On occasion. From elsewhere in the house.”

He doesn’t know why he confesses such things to her, but that is the effect she has, wearing down defenses with her gentle manner and tenderly voiced questions. It is almost as if, though not the husband of her choosing, she would know him regardless—know and understand.

If Cersei no longer cares to understand him, he was almost ready to give up all hope of being known.

Playing a muted chord, she tips her face towards him again, her lips pressed together like a perfect rosebud—unkissed lips. “You don’t have to keep away, my lord. It is a big house with plenty of room to hide, but there is no reason surely to be completely shut away from each other.”

Calling it hiding makes his actions sound cowardly. He doesn’t like to think of himself in those terms.

Hero and protector were always his more romanticized designations, as a proper officer and soldier. He thought those days well and finished. Though it wasn’t what he envisioned for himself in terms of lifelong employment, there was some real satisfaction in playing savior to his wife, however, when he stood for no further harassment of her by his sister. While Cersei was not entirely cowed, he sat rather taller at breakfast the next morning.

Lifting his chin to the keyboard, he silently invites her to play, but her fingers remain motionless.

“Do you play? Did you play?” she asks, correcting herself almost smoothly enough to cover for the slip.

She never draws cruel attention to his prosthetic nor ignores it in a way that makes him more conscious of it. He knows enough to understand she meant nothing by the misstep. Regardless, he swallows around a lump in his throat.

“No. Mother played. Cheerier tunes. She had a pretty voice as well.”

“But you were not taught?”

“No, and too late now. There are no three-handed duets, I suppose,” he says, miming as if to try his hand at joining her with the one he has left.

“Anything is possible if you want me to teach you,” she says, voice tremulous with promise.

Her bare, ungloved little finger lengthens, brushing the edge of his cuff, reaching farther until their fingers touch. Her almond shaped nail trails along his flesh. The pad of her finger overlaps his, moving incrementally, curling over his wider, tanner digit.

He is aware of his body again. Painfully so. Not just his missing hand. And that is something for which he is not prepared.

“Another time, perhaps,” he says, pulling his hand back without a glance at her upturned face. “I’ll give you space to play, Lady Lannisport.”


	7. The Letter

Previously, Jaime would not have looked with much enthusiasm upon sharing his table with Miss Tyrell, the Tyrells not being his favorite neighbors. Lately, however, he has encouraged it in his own way. Whether he and his wife dine with Miss Tyrell alone or with one of her brothers in tow, it provides some welcome company for their otherwise empty table, while taking supper in their less formal dining room.

Company provides a screen that he can almost disappear behind. Even the expanse of their formal dining room wouldn’t currently do the trick, should they be alone together: regardless of the degree of space between himself and Lady Lannisport, it never feels quite satisfactory.

After privately rebelling against the idea, following his father’s order, he had decided to tolerate a wife. Or rather, to ignore one as best he could. Then he began to feel increasingly at ease with his wife. Until, familiarity became its own source of discomfort. For all her careful lack of imposition, this one is becoming surprisingly difficult to ignore.

His noticing her was never a part of his plan, and until he decides how best to deal with such a confounding nuisance, it helps to have Miss Tyrell prattling away at his table, numbing him to whatever charms his wife might possess.

Yes, it is welcome even when they are forced to discuss hats over bombarded veal, quaking pudding, eggs au miroir, roast potatoes, and peach fritters and syllabub. Which they have. Hats have been the subject at hand for at least the last ten minutes, Jaime wagers, though he doesn’t have a view of the standing clock from where he sits at the head of the table with Sansa opposite and Miss Tyrell to his right. Hats are the order of the day. Hats and the requiring of more hats. Or which hats are no longer fashionable. Sipping his sherry, he hasn’t kept entirely abreast of the details of the conversation. Though his attention does keep being relentlessly drawn back by some movement on Sansa's part or some thing she says that cuts through his disinterest.

Which presently the case, as she extends one graceful arm bared to the puff of her sleeve to reach for the bowl of fruit beyond Miss Tyrell's reach. She lifts it to offer her friend some. From the narrow part of her wrist dangles one of the pairs of bracelets he gave her last week. He hasn't yet summoned the courage to write his father about his mother's jewelry, but on a whim, he sent to London for something fashionable. Asking his personal jeweler to choose something appropriate, a velvet lined box arrived with gold bracelets set with foil-backed topazes. He considered presenting them personally, but thought better of it, when he pictured closing the clasps himself. Instead, he had them sent to her room. She received them with appropriate gratitude and seemed genuinely pleased, but then, she is rarely not appropriate.

“Autumnal shades suit me best,” Miss Tyrell asserts in her prettily self-deprecating way, as she refuses the offer of the fruit with a quick shake of her head. “It was a poor choice from the start.”

“I hardly think so,” his wife says, setting the bowl back down. “You have that fine blue cape that everyone admires.”

Sansa rarely allows someone to speak ill of themselves without bestowing some corrective compliment. They’re always imbued with enough insight into the person in question that one can hardly fail to feel better. It’s a rather skillful trick.

“No, I look a fright in the old thing. I shall pull it apart and start anew with flowers that will suit me better. You might wear anything, my dear, but not everyone is so lucky. What do you say, Lord Lannisport?”

Jaime taps the table with the middle finger on his left hand. “I’m a married man, Miss Tyrell. I have no opinion on your complexion in a hat.”

“No, of course not, my lord! I mean to say, is it not so that Lady Lannisport can wear anything? She would be the loveliest lady in the neighborhood even if she dressed in rags.”

“Let’s not pursue that possibility. I’d rather none of us resort to rags.”

Miss Tyrell laughs—not too loud, just enough to seem properly amused. She works very hard at being good company. He only needs her to be here, however, and finds her contributions to the conversation beside the point.

He gives her a flat smile. “Lady Lannisport might replace all her hats if she so likes.”

Miss Tyrell’s head snaps back to her hostess, rosy lips parting. “Isn’t that a fine offer? We should walk tomorrow to Baelor’s. The weather should hold.”

“A walk would be lovely.”

His wife is not what he would call a sporting lady, but she is active. Those Stark women generally are even if she is not precisely what he expected from a member of her house. She takes daily walks in the garden and she is up and down the stairs half a dozen times a day, fetching things for herself she could easily send a servant for if she liked. There’s that lady’s mount he means to get her too if he remembers to speak to the head groom about the matter. Then she might ride too.

Which would get her out of the house. She isn't exactly in the way, but she does seem to find herself in the same room as him with some greater frequency of late. He'll have only sprawled out upon a sofa to contemplate nothing, when she'll float through the doorway and perch elsewhere in the room with a hello before commencing some quiet activity. Then he finds himself looking upon her and finding pleasure in the practice.

Of course, if she rode out, they might ride out together sometimes.

“I did hear they had new ribbons in since yesterday,” Miss Tyrell says, lifting her glass. “Loras looked in the window and said he saw a great deal of new colors. I should very much like some green ribbon if that is indeed the case. They never have the right shade.” She pauses to take a sip. “But then, new lace would be lovely too. I might just end up purchasing both.”

His wife presses her lips together as if in thought. She dimples her lower lip with an eyetooth. It’s an unpolished habit he’s taken note of in quiet moments, when she is focused on some task. He finds it inexplicably appealing.

“There is a bonnet I could trim,” she finally says, as if it is the greatest admission.

But then, not so long ago, her circumstances were much reduced. Economies were made by necessity and habits of all kinds can be difficult to break.

Miss Tyrell sets down her glass and presses her hands together. “Good. It’s a plan then.”

His wife agrees and her smile is that real one that he liked to imagine she only gave him on occasion. Miss Tyrell's friendship is not without drawbacks.

“Doesn’t one feel better when one has a plan for the next day?” Miss Tyrell asks.

“Especially one so vital as this one,” Jaime says.

“Gentlemen don’t understand,” Miss Tyrell says sotto voce, adding in the same lowered tone, “I would dearly love a lace collar like the one you're wearing tonight if they have something that would suit. Your neck is so elegant in it, my dear.”

Jaime lifts his glass and glances at his wife over the rim as he brings it to his mouth. She really does make a picture in her detached collar and white silk gown. There are seed pearls along the bodice that catch the light from the table's center candelabra, when she shifts in her tall backed chair. He doesn’t recall seeing her in it before. With Miss Tyrell as a companion, she is liable to acquire a more substantial wardrobe, for Miss Tyrell encourages such outings with some regularity. Though, he expects Sansa won’t abandon her modesty in dress in favor of Miss Tyrell's more daring fashion. Even tonight, there’s a softness to her appearance not out of line with her character.

“You praise me too much, Miss Tyrell.”

Her cheeks have pinkened, betraying just how uncomfortable Miss Tyrell’s extravagance of attitude has the ability to make her.

“Fie, I couldn’t possibly praise you enough,” Miss Tyrell says, as the burled wood door behind his wife swings open and a footman enters in his Lannister red coat, knee breeches, stockings, and powdered wig.

The servant walks silently over to Jaime’s right, balancing a small silver tray in the palm of his white gloved hand. Crooking a brow, Jaime looks up at the man, who awaits being acknowledged by his master with heels together like a proper soldier. It would be better, however, should he stand to his left if he means to hand him something.

“A letter arrived for you, my lord.”

“Place it here,” Jaime says, tapping the tablecloth with his faux hand. He grimaces at the sound it makes against the wood beneath. Nothing real sounds so hollow.

“The messenger did say it was urgent, my lord,” the man says, bending at the waist to place the lettuce edge plate beside Jaime’s glass.

“Urgent, hmm?” Jaime says, reaching over himself for the folded letter, so the man might carry the tray away presently.

The man does that, retrieving the tray and disappearing from whence he came. Only the bell at Sansa's side would call him back.

Miss Tyrell leans towards Jaime, as he turns the letter a quarter-turn. “Business at this hour, Lord Lannister? Surely not! When just we were wanting your opinion.”

Any closer and she might be able to read the letter before he can, which would no doubt suit her wickedly smart grandmother, who he suspects collects other people’s business the way most women collect calling cards.

Jaime looks over his nose at Miss Tyrell, as he slides his finger under the wax seal. It gives with a soft pop. “Forgive the interruption, Miss Tyrell, but my seeing to this shouldn’t delay your pleasure. Nor Lady Lannisport's. I think I made it rather clear I have no opinion to contribute when it comes to fashion.”

Miss Tyrell shrugs with a careless wave of her hand. “Then, we shall forgive him this once, shan’t we, my lady? For there is no arguing with a lack of taste. It is a good thing Lord Lannisport has other admirable qualities.”

Before giving the open letter his undivided attention, he catches the widening of Sansa’s blue eyes at her friend’s boldness. If Margaery Tyrell means to flirt with her host, he suspects there’s no more substance behind it than there is with her brother’s antics. Regardless, while Jaime’s wife poses some increasing difficulty for his peace of mind, he can congratulate himself that he is perfectly immune to Miss Tyrell. Just as he has always been immune to a pretty face or the allure of a fine figure on display. One can hardly throw a stone without hitting a woman of some merit, when it comes to appearance, though few are really beautiful.

He spreads the letter open with a slide of his fingers along the crease. When it does not immediately fold back up, he tilts it to the light. First, close and then somewhat farther away, he moves the letter until it comes into focus. The writing is immediately familiar to him even in the dim light. His eyes dart to the bottom, where she has signed her name in the loopy fashion she adopted as a young girl, when her signature was not yet Lady Dragonstone. Cersei’s script is a more delicate, feminine version of his own. Though this note looks hastily written. In places, the ink is smudged, including the complimentary close above her signature.

The close is peculiar beyond the smudge of the ink

_It is done._

His eyes scan back to the top. The opening lines make her meaning all too plain. But what they might imply give him no satisfaction, however much he might have wished the man gone. How can he feel any relief, when it makes him fear for his sister. If not her soul, her preservation from accusation and investigation.

“My Lord?” his wife says, cutting through his mounting panic enough to force his head up and meet her gaze.

Both she and Miss Tyrell look back at him queerly. Lady Lannisport may have sought his attention more than once if her questioning look is anything to go by. Though, it’s hard to say, when there’s a ringing in his ears he can barely ignore.

Hissing through his teeth, he flicks the letter onto the table. It would be satisfying to throw it in the fireplace behind him, but for once, it was warm enough that Wat did not order one lit for the evening.

“Yes, Lady Lannisport?” he says, clearing his constricted throat.

“Is there something amiss, my lord?”

“Indeed.” He clears it again and is reminded of Cersei’s chastening of Tyrion for much the same indelicacy. “Lord Dragonstone is dead.”

“Dead?” his wife echoes back.

“Yes. Quite.”

Jaime can almost picture him laid out.

He reaches up his good hand to scrub at his mouth. Pressing hard on his eyes until stars pop in his vision might be helpful too, but what he truly wants is to pull free his cravat. Miss Tyrell’s presence prevents it. And here he encouraged her invitation to dine.

“Oh dear!” Miss Tyrell exclaims, lifting her hand to her bosom. “But they were only just here.”

“Yes. It would seem it was rather sudden.”

Not all that surprising though, which is why Jaime feels as if he is fighting to breathe.

He is not the only one in the room who seems to be overcome. His wife has gone silent, all the color drained from her cheeks and eyes fixed upon him in a blank kind of panic he doesn’t understand, for Lady Lannisport showed no signs of being fond of Lord Dragonstone, when he was visiting. There is no good reason for her to care in the least what became of the man.

Miss Tyrell looks to her friend, clearly seeking some guidance on what to say or do with a family death announced at the table, but with one hand clenched on the tablecloth, Sansa sits as still as a statue save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest. When her friend fails to speak, Miss Tyrell seems determined to fill the void, and taking a deep breath, gives a slow shake of her head before launching into a fresh monologue Jaime thinks neither he nor Sansa are likely to appreciate.

“What a tragic loss, my lord. Lord Dragonstone was still very much in the prime of life. Was he ill? Or an accident perhaps?”

Jaime hopes it wasn’t an accident. An accident would be rather too convenient given their discussion when she was here last. A sudden illness would be the best scenario. Cersei doesn’t precisely say, which is more than passing strange.

He swallows hard around the lump beneath the knot in his cravat. He has to get this damnable thing off. And he has to go. From this room. From this house. He has to get to his sister and determine whether he needs to save her from herself.

If he does something, he’ll feel better. He’ll be able to breathe again.

“It was very sudden,” Jaime says mechanically, as he pushes back from the table. “Excuse me, Miss Tyrell, Lady Lannisport.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You’ll want me gone,” Miss Tyrell says, as she comes to her feet as well. “Dear me.”

“No, stay,” he says, holding up his hand to stop her. Once he is gone, it won’t matter that Miss Tyrell is here. Indeed, her presence will solve the problem of what to do with his wife, whom he absolutely has no desire to take with him on this pressing errand. He needs to be alone with his sister and his current confusion over his wife has no business being a part of the mix. “Stay the night. It will provide Lady Lannisport some comfort to have the benefit of your company, while I’m gone. I must leave immediately, I'm afraid.”

Sansa finally speaks. “For Dragonstone?”

His wife doesn’t stand, though everyone else has, leaving Miss Tyrell looking rather awkwardly between them.

“I must. My sister will need me.”

Miss Tyrell waits for a response from her friend for an interminably long space, when only the clock provides a distraction from the awkwardness of the moment, but finally, she gives in for the need to alleviate her uneasy place in this scene. “Yes, but you’ll want Lady Lannisport to go as well,” she ventures. “I ought to have my carriage sent for and leave you to your preparations. I would only get in the way.”

“You’re welcome to stay, Miss Tyrell. Lady Lannisport will not be accompanying me.”

“You don’t wish me to come, my lord?”

“No need.”

His wife’s clenched hand opens flat on the tablecloth as she gives a slow blink.

He can’t tell if she appears shocked or relieved. Things have grown very odd between them if she is truly surprised to be left behind as soon as he is able to dispense with her. But if it is relief instead? Relief to be separated from him for a few weeks’ time? The prospect is unexpectedly annoying.

Now is not the time to sort through such things, however.

Cersei will need him. It is good to be needed and especially by his twin. Surely. He doesn’t feel it now, but he will. When he recovers from this sense of impending doom, he’ll feel useful again. He was born to be at his sister’s side. Born to aid her. If there is a God in heaven, it was His plan, when he saw to their creation.

“Excuse me,” he repeats.

“Wait for the morrow,” Sansa tries, still seated with her back straight and no appropriate expression of sympathy for her brother-in-law’s passing on her lips, when she is always so very appropriate. “It’s dark, my lord.”

He gives his wife no answer, making instead for the doorway, driven by an urgency to feel what he ought. This pressing need makes him forget his missing hand, as he drags his false one through his hair. The thoughtless gesture immediately reminds him of his loss in a flash of humiliation. Gritting his teeth, he regrets Miss Tyrell’s presence even more sharply, though both the ladies are now behind him. Yet another person to observe his disintegration.

The taste of regret is thick and bitter on his tongue, as he strides for the stairs in the entry. There is so very much to regret. So many duties to perform and so many of them in competition with each other.

If this had happened four months ago, there would be no wife, urging him to wait until the morrow to go to his sister. He would be unwed and unencumbered, and with his sister newly widowed, his future would be very different.

He certainly would not have a soft voice calling after him on the stairs, when he reaches the first landing, forcing him to face a slim specter climbing behind him. He would be in an empty house, filled only with servants ready to do his bidding to speed him on his way.

“My Lord, please wait. I have sent for the Tyrell carriage. Let me assist you.”

“With what?”

As surely as a slap, the sharpness of his answer shows on her upturned face. He thought at first that these shows of fear were evidence of his wife’s being as timid as a mouse. He disliked her for it. But she has shown moments of admirable pluck and spirit in the course of their short marriage, which contrast with that assessment. She is an enigma.

“Packing, my lord. Your preparations. Whatever needs be done,” she says, reaching the last tread before the landing with her hand resting on the wide banister.

She stays there, one step below him, looking up, half her face thrown in shadow from the dim light. Even in this superficial way, she is not fully revealed to him.

“Hardly necessary, don’t you think? The servants can manage.”

“Yes, but who will direct them? You are distressed. I can be of assistance.”

“You are mistaken. In life I did not care for Lord Dragonstone. His death can hardly affect me.”

“Lord Lannisport,” she says in a gentle sing-song.

“Do you mean to scold me? You have not expressed any regret at his passing.”

“No, my lord. I wouldn’t think to scold you.”

She takes the last step, rising up to almost match his height. She clasps her hands primly before herself. She is a remarkably tall young woman. Like his sister. Or his mother perhaps, but then, he was a child, so perhaps his mother only seemed tall.

He grimaces at the still urgent need to swallow against this knot. By God, his cravat is going to choke him. He reaches up and begins to tug it free.

One of her slim hands moves to press against her stomach. Either in shock at his disrobing or at how inexpertly he manages it with this left hand. He pulls harder—great jerking tugs.

“I only mean to offer my assistance,” she says, crushing the white silk of her gown under the firm pressure of her hand.

“I can manage. Alton can manage,” he huffs, as the overabundance of fabric begins to loosen.

He’ll ride in the carriage without a cravat. Perhaps he’ll dispense with his jacket as well. What does it matter what state he arrives in at Dragonstone? Cersei will welcome him with open arms in whatever condition he arrives. That is the way of it between them when all is as it should be.

All will be well. With the death of Lord Dragonstone, things will be the way they before, once he's made certain Cersei did not have a hand in his passing. Yes, that is unthinkable and naught will be wrong shortly.

Save for the fact that he has a wife, whose has his name on her lips, as she reaches for the forearm of his jacket in unaccustomed boldness.

Putting his back to her, he doesn’t give her a chance to complete the gesture. One step after another and he puts her father behind, ignoring this inconvenience of having a wife, when Cersei is now free for the first time in decades.

“And you would not have me come with you?” she calls after him. “I shouldn’t follow you in a day?”

She doesn’t wish to see his family again, he wagers. Better she stays here, out of sight and out of mind. Better that he be alone with his sister.

“There would be nothing for you there.”


	8. The Welcome

No matter the hour—and it is the early morning, where the light is grey and diffused by the fog—Jaime expected upon his arrival to be welcomed by his sister. He has thought of little else as they drew near to Dragonstone, holding a picture of it in his mind: folding her into his chest, assuring her that all would be well, that he was here to help her. He will have purpose, she will be safe, and he will be assured once more in who he is with the promise of her love.

They were everything to each other once, but it has been some time since he was everything to her. People have come between them—a husband, children. Yet, no one has understood her the way he, her twin, understands her or she understands him. No one has loved him, nor he loved in return. There is an emptiness inside him so vast that only Cersei's acceptance can fill. He must accept her as she is too. Even once he is made to understand what became of Lord Dragonstone. Whatever she was driven to do, he played a part in it. His father played a part in it. She is not fully to blame, nor can he allow her to suffer for it.

He thought Cersei would be waiting for him on the step or spy him from a window and come flying down the stairs to tell him with her head pressed to his shoulder the truth of Lord Dragonstone's death. That is not the case, however. Cersei is nowhere to be found, as the carriage pulls up in front of Dragonstone. Nowhere to be found, as he is ushered by sleepy servants into the grim main hall with halfhearted offers of refreshment. Standing in the echoing vastness of the old abbey, Jaime feels more alone than he has in some time, here where he thought he would find solace. Instead, he is assured by a youthful servant that a room will be ready to receive him should he wish to go directly to bed.

He hasn’t slept—not truly. He dosed off and on, as they bounced over dry roads, but he never truly fell deeply into any restful slumber. Despite his exhaustion, however, he knows he won’t be able to sleep until he’s seen her and received an account of what happened to her husband. This responsibility falls to him.

Cersei was his first duty, his most important duty. Born directly after his sister, holding onto her foot, so they were told, from the moment of their birth, his role was fixed. What memories he has of his mother are blurred by time, but he remembers her softly voiced command to watch after his sister. It has not always been the easiest charge, for Cersei will act as precipitously as he is wont to do: a dangerous quality in a woman, but one he understands. They are the same, perfect mirrors, so how can he not understand her?

He stands there, clothing rumpled and pulled asunder, and stares up the stairs, trying to will her down them with a knitting of his brows and silent scream. Once she would have been here without his needing to desire it, when they were of perfect accord. It is people who have come between them. People and service and loss.

Surely, she knew upon receipt of her letter, he would come fast as he could, and knowing that, she should be awaiting his arrival. But he is alone here in the hall with a servant who clearly would rather be abed. That hollow feeling in his chest? He's felt it before. On the battlefield, as they sawed off his arm above the wrist, and he was certain he would die alone surrounded by strangers.

As incomprehensible as it might be, for all his confusion, he was more content at home at Lannisport House before he ever received the news of Lord Dragonstone's death. Before he ever gave thought to how this might play out and what it could mean for him.

Expectations sour the finest vintage.

He hears his name—a man's voice, not a woman's—and turns towards the sound.

“Mr. Lannister is in the salon, Lord Lannisport.”

He frowns, frozen for the moment by the oddity of his brother’s presence in this space.

“My brother, Mr. Lannister?” Jaime asks the baby-faced young man.

“Yes, my lord. If you care to join him, I can have refreshment sent to you in the salon.”

Jaime hesitates, giving the staircase one last look, before assenting to the servant’s offer and turning on his heel for the salon. He knows the way. It was not so very long ago that he was convalescing here under difficult circumstances. His expectations then were far from met as well.

It should be different now with Robert dead. Cersei shouldn't care about his hand or his having a wife. That should all be forgotten now, so that finally, all will be as it was before, when they were young and happy and the world yet lie before them.

Some of the candles have burned out in the salon, leaving it in a murky state. Apparently, his brother, who sits propped at the table, glass in hand, looking as worse for wear as Jaime suspects he looks, has not seen fit to call for fresh ones to be lit. It’s more than a passingly strange scene, him here, alone, in their sister’s salon, the last person Jaime would have thought to have beaten him to Dragonstone.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

Cersei won’t have sent Tyrion notification of Lord Dragonstone’s death. Not so quickly. For, she will have had no pressing desire to have him here. She hates the sight of him. She’s blamed him for their mother’s death, since he was just a baby, and if left alone with him in his bassinet, she would take to tormenting him out of pure spite. That is just one of his sister’s darker urges that Jaime has had to put a stop to throughout the years, while forgiving her for it in the same breath.

If he’d been here at her side, he might have stopped her from committing some foul act out of desperation. But then, for all her rushing headlong into trouble, she wouldn’t have actually murdered Robert. That is a step too far. What she said to Jaime in the garden was said in frustration or a bad jest.

No, her husband was a drunk and overweight—that must have contributed to his untimely demise. If indeed he died from some natural cause and not a fall from a horse.

Or a trip down the stairs.

The tingling creep of fear he felt first form at the base of his spine begins its slow prickling spread again and he pushes it down with a clench of his left hand, digging his nails into the flesh of his palm.

Tyrion lifts his glass. “What a greeting! I expected more from you, Jaime. You’re the only soul, who I count on to be pleased to see me. A how’d you do wouldn’t be out of place.”

“Expecting something was your first mistake.” He flexes his hand and clenches it again. “I spent all night in a carriage. I’m in no mood for games.”

“Oh, but I am. I _drank_ all night,” his brother says, gesturing to the table, as if there is some evidence before them of his imbibing, but whatever glasses or bottles might have sat before him have been dutifully cleared away. Perhaps by the youth, who assisted him in the entryway. “After Father forced me to accompany him here, there was nothing to do but drink. Fine wine stores: I’ll say that much for the place. So, I’m properly drunk and in the mood for some merriment. Sit and amuse me. Everyone here is exceptionally dull.”

Jaime grabs the back of the chair closest him and jerks it from under the table. “Father is here already?”

Tyrion nods sagely. “He thought it best. A show of force if you will.”

With no jacket on, there are no tails to fuss with, when Jaime takes his seat. “What do you mean by that?”

“Wine?” Tyrion asks, tipping his glass towards the doorway. “Shall I call for the servant?”

“Someone is coming with refreshment. What do you mean a show of force?” he asks, sinking into the chair far enough to let his head loll back against the wood.

Holding his head upright feels too monumental a task at the moment.

“I might be the clever Lannister, but surely it’s occurred to you that Lord Dragonstone’s passing is distressingly convenient for our dear sister. It might elicit comment.”

“You call a woman’s husband dying convenient?”

“For many women, yes, though they’d be loath to admit it to a man. I expect in private they rejoice when we die, so long as they can rely on an allowance substantial enough to keep them out of the poor house.”

“That isn’t Cersei’s concern.”

“No, Cersei is set up quite comfortably here, isn’t she? She and Tommen both.”

Tommen. Jaime hadn't yet considered Tommen in all this. But then, as un-involved a father as Lord Dragonstone was, there's no real loss there. He shall be saved from his fate of being sent to school at least for the present, but that does mean that whatever happens henceforth, Tommen must be made a part of them.

“Unfortunately, Cersei didn’t keep her disgust with Lord Dragonstone’s behavior much of a secret. Nor he his dalliances. The lack of harmony in our sister’s marriage was well-known here in the neighborhood and in London.”

“What of it?” Jaime asks with a scrub of his face, though he perfectly comprehends the implication, for that has been the source of his own unease since receiving Cersei's missive.

That Tyrion has jumped to a similar conclusion without having been asked by Cersei to dispose of said husband is decidedly no comfort.

“I suppose Father thinks it best if we all turn up and play our part, so nothing looks amiss. A unified front.”

“People die every day.”

“See, I knew you weren’t stupid,” Tyrion says with a wink. “Speaking of unwilling wives, where is yours, brother?”

“Lady Lannisport is at home. She won’t be attending the funeral.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” His brother cocks his mismatched eyes at him. “Might Lord Dragonstone’s death be convenient for you too? Or have you warmed to your wife? It almost seemed as if you had there at the end. You should, you know, what a lovely young lady. A life with her would be better than spending your days in some twisted game of house with our sister.”

With a slow exhale, Jaime taps the prosthetic’s fingers on his leg. “Enough with this line of speculation or we’ll quarrel.”

“Father won’t abide you abandoning her, Jaime.”

“Who said anything about that?”

“Just a supposition,” Tyrion says, bringing the glass to his mouth and tipping his head back to drain whatever dregs remain at the bottom. He grimaces, when he sets the glass down. “I wish that man would hurry with something for you. I intend on taking some for myself.”

“You can have all of it if you like.”

Jaime was hungry at some point during the night, but that sensation faded over time. He's well beyond it now.

“This generosity of spirit is why you’re my favorite brother.”

“Only brother.”

“Yes, but let's not get bogged down in details. Let me just say, I’m glad to be wrong about how things stand with your sweet wife if I truly am. A word of warning, though: Father’s liable to lecture you about an heir, while you’re thrown together here until the funeral.”

A pit opens up in his stomach. His wife is none of his father’s business. Nor his marriage. Sansa is his responsibility now, and he won’t abide any discussion of her. Particularly not on that account. It's vulgar and she wouldn't like it.

He taps his fingers against his leg once more. “Did he say something?”

“He may have, during our interminable carriage ride together.”

“We have no need for his concern.”

Tyrion hums, brows reaching for his hairline. “Does that mean congratulations are in order?”

Jaime’s jaw works before he manages to respond. “It means everyone should mind their own business.”

Tyrion bobs his head. “Well, Father isn’t in the mood for being delicate, I’m afraid. This unpleasantness of a son-in-law dying on him has his hackles up. He thought our sister disposed of.”

“So she was at his pleasure. He ought to let her be now. Besides, she has Tommen to think of and an estate to manage. There’s little cause for concern that she’ll be idle.”

“That isn’t the concern, Jaime. Cersei has always wanted to take the reins. She'll take to it like a duck to water. Only, Father thinks her too young to be a widow. You should hear him expound on how unseemly it will be to have her swanning about the countryside unaccompanied. Father would have made for a very demanding governess.”

“So, she’ll need a lady’s companion,” Jaime says, though he knows any suggestion of a companion will infuriate his sister.

Let their Father weather that storm.

“Oh, she already has a companion selected,” Tyrion says with sudden brightness.

Jaime knows well enough of Tyrion's moods to expect it betrays some mischief afoot. “Then what's the problem?”

“He isn't any happier with her chaperon of choice than he is with the possibility of her being unaccompanied.”

“Who is it?”

There was the Merryweather woman that Father didn't approve of. Not after it became public knowledge she was involved with captain with a scar on his face, which gave him a rakish sort of appeal. It wouldn’t be out of the question for his sister to have called for her, when Lord Dragonstone died, just as she called for Jaime via an urgent message. Although, Jaime would prefer it if he was not classed with someone so wholly unconnected to the family as Taena Merryweather.

“Well, if you’ve come to save the maiden, Jaime, someone has headed you off.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cousin Lancel’s the man for the job apparently. Do you know his timing was so fortuitous, despite Lord Dragonstone not yet being dead, Lancel was already on the scene, primed to provide professional consolation, when the surprising event occurred? So curious. The power of the Lord at work, I suppose.”

Jaime screws up his face. He can't recall the last time he saw the lad nor heard much news of him.

“Cousin Lancel was here?”

Lancel is their first cousin, the eldest son of their uncle. He has the Lannister look more or less—sandy hair and green eyes. He is also arrogant without reason, being at least fifteen years Jaime’s junior and having accomplished little other than taking the cloth. He is impatient and devoid of humor. Jaime's gut reaction to this bit of news is that he doesn’t like the thought of their cousin being Cersei’s companion any more than his Father apparently does.

“Still is here as a matter of fact.”

“Doesn't he have a flock to tend to?”

“Family first it would seem. Such a handy thing, having a vicar in the family. We ought to have done it years ago. Should it have been you or me though, do you think?”

Jaime sits forward in his chair, leaning towards his brother. “Why would she send for Lancel of all people?”

“As far as I can tell, they were right in the middle of a cozy family visit, when Robert gave up the ghost. Lucky thing, for Cersei finds it the greatest comfort to have him near, since her husband so shockingly passed. Do you know she gave Lancel a better room than me? His is close to hers,” Tyrion says, pointing at the ceiling overhead. “On the north side of the house, where the good views are to be had. Mine is hardly more than a cabinet. A dark cabinet, which is why I’ve set up camp here.”

“No wonder. You’re lucky she didn’t put you in the attic.”

“Don’t suggest it too loudly, she’ll take it into her head to do just that. Father wouldn’t lift a hand to stop her either. You know, with so many of us Lannisters gathered together on this inauspicious occasion, maybe you ought to reconsider having Lady Lannisport join us. It’d be a respite. Someone not from the same bloodline at least.”

Jaime flops back in the chair, crossing his good arm over the bad. “I wouldn’t have her within a country mile of our family after that scene between you and Cersei.”

The more he’s thought about it, the more he thinks Sansa’s panicked looks at the table owed to her being afraid of being asked to accompany him to Dragonstone. For all her offers of assistance, she certainly had good reason to avoid a repeat of their last family gathering. And if that’s all it was, it’s a conclusion he finds easier to digest than the idea that she wanted to be free of him if only for a few days. Why he prefers one possibility over the other, when he ought to be relieved to be free of her as well, he’d rather not dwell on. He has no space presently for contemplating the confusion that surrounds every thought of his wife.

“As much as I enjoy a job well done, that's giving us too much credit. Don’t forget Lord Dragonstone’s contributions to the success of our visit. Bless his dear departed soul.”

“If you’re worried about his soul, maybe you ought to have been the vicar.”

“My concern presently is less spiritually minded. Think of the pallbearers. Can you imagine it?” His brother raises and lowers his brows in a show of comedic efforts. “Consider your fate if Cersei asks it of you.”

Jaime is still in no mood. Less and less in a mood for merriment, it would seem.

“Let her request it of Lancel if they’re suddenly so close.”

His brother grins back at him. “Oh, no doubt she will, and won’t it lend a real sense of legitimacy to our bereavement to have a Lannister _and_ a vicar hefting his weight?”

Jaime rolls his eyes. His brother enjoys ruffling feathers for pure sport, but there is no earthly reason for Cersei to rely on Lancel. Not when she must have known Jaime would be at her side as soon as he was able. For all his self-avowed cleverness, Tyrion has misread the situation. If she has treated Lancel with more kindness than Tyrion, there is no real surprise there, and that is the extent of it.

“But it does seem a sorry thing that our cousin should be the vicar, when I could give a sermon once a week and do a better job of it besides. Something tells me Lancel is not the brightest star in the firmament,” Tyrion says, as his eyes cut over to something beyond Jaime’s shoulder. “Morning, sister. I was just saying how much better my sermons would be than Lancel’s. Much better than Old Robeson ever managed to summon up too. I may have missed my calling.”

Jaime twists in his chair, locking eyes with his sister. Perhaps she did rush down to greet him as soon as she was made aware of his presence. She certainly looks it.

In a state of undress, she has obviously recently arisen with little alteration to her person. Though she wears no night cap, she is still dressed in her nightrail, a thin dressing gown, and wrapper—fit to receive a visitor in her room perhaps, but not yet dressed as elegantly as they are all accustomed to seeing her. Without her cap and not yet having her hair dressed by her lady’s maid, her blonde curls are looser about her face than usual, almost as if she did not have them put up in rags before going to bed.

If she truly hurried down to see him, however, there is no sign of joy in her flushed face, which looks as if she has just completed some exertion.

“I’d hoped you were the servant, bringing us something to revive the spirit,” Tyrion says, as she shifts her focus from one brother to the other.

Jaime is not accustomed to Cersei giving him the same irritated look as she gives their brother.

“And I’d wished you were never been born. Life disappoints sometimes.”

“Not now, it doesn't. Everything is going splendidly for you at present. You see Jaime has come to congratulate you on your misplacing a husband.”

“He’s dead. Not misplaced.”

Cersei’s enunciation is too precise for the high color on her cheeks to be from alcohol. Too unaffected to be from a long night of tears—not that Jaime would expect her to waste time crying over Robert.

“Forgive the confusion, sister dear, but you can clear this up for us finally. Jaime and I are waiting on pins and needles to hear how it happened. Do tell.”

“I have no intention of indulging your morbid curiosity.”

But it isn’t curiosity that drives Jaime’s need to know what became of Robert. It is a deep, nearly paralyzing fear for his sister's future. He can't take being in the dark one moment longer.

So paralyzing that he forgot to stand, when she entered the room.

“I’d speak with Cersei alone,” Jaime says, forcing himself onto his feet.

Cersei glances behind her, as a kitchen servant with sunken eyes appears with the tray of sustenance that was promised earlier. The poor girl drops a bobbing courtesy and begins a litany of apologies for interrupting.

If she is on edge around the lady of the house, there is good reason. Every woman in their employ was a possible threat to Cersei's dignity here. Even this girl. She’s a mousy looking thing, but that wouldn’t have stopped Robert. The man’s appetites were enormous.

“Yes, yes, put it down on the table and then both of you be gone. You and my brother,” Cersei clarifies with a flick of her wrist.

“I’m not your lapdog, sister,” says his brother, as if he might refuse to accede to either of their requests for a private audience.

“Obviously. Lapdogs are loyal,” Cersei says, one hand on the closure high on the neck of her wrapper, as she glides into the room.

“Like Lancel?”

“Enough,” Jaime says, less for Cersei's sake than his own.

The young girl jumps at the bark of his command and the tray rattles dangerously close to his side, as she attempts to settle it on the table with shaking hands. Chore accomplished, she’s as quick as a rabbit, backing away, with yet another quiet apology for the upended jar of marmalade beside the slices of cold ham.

“Just go,” Cersei demands unnecessarily, as the girl is already halfway to the door, scurrying away.

Tyrion reaches up to scratch at his right brow, peering over at what has been set out for Jaime’s refreshment. He's still welcome to it.

“Take the bottle with you,” Jaime offers.

Hopefully the gesture will hurry his brother on his way too.

Anyway, he has no stomach for nourishment.

Tyrion visibly considers it before giving a shrug. “I've thought better of it. I’ll sleep this headache off before I’m given a fresh one from Father’s lectures at supper.”

“You might skip supper altogether” Cersei suggests, as Tyrion slides down from his chair. “You wouldn’t be missed.”

“Were those your parting words to Lord Dragonstone as well?” Tyrion asks, adjusting his waist coat along the bottom, where his shirt sticks out like a great handful was pulled free at some point earlier in the evening.

“You think you’re so clever. But you’ve a small mind. And you're a small man.”

“I’d almost forgotten,” Tyrion says, tapping his temple with a blunt finger. “But,” he says, pointing that same finger Jaime’s way, “you ought to remember what I said: there are better things in this world than anything to be found in this family. Goodnight,” he finishes, though the sunrise peeks high enough over the horizon that the light in the room has become pale and bright.

Cersei moves to his side, as their brother hobbles from the room on unsteady legs, the lone sign of his intoxication besides his desire for mischief. But she approaches not to put her arms round his neck as he envisioned, but to pluck a wine glass from the tray and reach for the bottle Jaime has only just offered to Tyrion. It is uncorked and he watches as she pours herself a glass with a steady hand.

No, the flush is not caused by drink, even if she intends to indulge as soon as she has risen from bed. That seems at present to be her sole concern, not him.

This isn’t the welcome he thought he would receive. Though the lady of the house is now up and they inhabit the same space with naught but an arm’s length between them, she shows no sign of increasing their intimacy with the removal of their brother and the servant.

This is a calculatingly cool greeting. Cool enough to ice the glazed windows of the salon, despite the warmth promised by the sunrise.

His brother meant to remind him that Sansa awaits him at Lannisport House, to remind him not of a duty, but a more pleasant prospect than the cool cruelty of his sister. But there is nothing at Lannisport House for him but uncertainty and the unfamiliar.

The only thing that has ever made sense in this world is the love he has for his sister and the love she had for him. If there is nothing left of that, he is truly alone.

“Suddenly,” Cersei says, lifting the glass to her lips, “I am thrust into the role of hostess, playing to the whole of my dear family.”

Does she mean she didn’t expect him to come? Such a thing would be unfathomable.

When he was injured, he thought only of surviving to return to England and be with his sister again. How can it be any different for her, when she teeters on the brink of disaster?

A rosy circle shows just above the neck of her wrapper, now that she's let loose of it. He tilts his head to get a better look at it, but her thick braid falls forward, obscuring it.

He sinks into one hip, eyes still fixed upon whatever is hidden beneath her golden hair. “What did you expect, when your husband died?”

“Not to see you at this early hour. I only just sent the letter. It isn't as if the funeral will be at teatime.”

“I came as soon as I received your letter.”

Wetting her lips, she holds the glass to the side, arm jutting out from where she props her elbow at the waist. “Why bother?”

“Because you will have need me, and from what I gathered from your hasty letter, I could not say how urgently you might need my assistance.”

If Cersei sent Robert for a tumble down the stairs, a plan must be concocted immediately. Deception might be her preference and he would aid her in it if need be, but he would prefer flight. The Continent. America. Somewhere the King's long arms wouldn’t reach.

“Where is your wife?” she asks, letting the glass dangle precipitously from two fingers.

Grabbing the back of his chair, he taps his foot impatiently against the carpet. _This again_.

“At Lannisport House. Where else would she be?”

Cersei makes a noncommittal sound, as she grabs for the bottle once more. She raises it in offering, but he shakes his head.

“Here. At your side. You're her greatest champion.”

His standing up for Sansa felt like the right thing, it even felt good, but he knew even as he did it that he would pay for it long after. The echoes of that action still ring here in the salon.

“I am here and at the ready, Cersei.”

“Yes, well, I needed you previously, but I couldn’t count on you. The letter was merely my informing you of Lord Dragonstone's passing. Don’t mistake its meaning: it was no pathetic cry for help.”

There should be nothing pathetic about her needing his help. They were formed together for this purpose.

“You can always rely on me, Cersei.”

“No, I have to do entirely for myself. Clearly.”

Self-reliance is one thing, but murdering a husband to be done with him is another. Without question, she intimates the former and not the latter. And yet, her speaking in riddles does nothing to calm his roiling gut.

“What happened? Tell me what happened with Robert,” he demands, letting go of the mahogany chairback to take the one last step closer to her.

This close he can smell her French perfume, the same she has worn since she first entered society. It should be impossible to source now, but she wears enough of it fresh from bed that he doesn’t have to lean into her neck to note the fragrance.

Refusing to give ground, she looks him up and down, but then, his intention is not to intimidate, as her contemptuous pout seems to indicate she assumes. His intention in coming close is to overcome her defenses, to drive her into a confession. Then they might begin again on even ground.

The bottle still clutched in one hand, she turns her head to the side to take long a sip from the glass held in the other. Draining that, she pauses to pour more. All right under his nose, as he fights the urge to crash a fist down on the table beside them. Her practiced composure, however, presupposes that he will lose his cool. She's counting on it, so she can begin to shout and hurl accusations at him.

Even now, when he has come to save her from her worst impulses, she would indulge in a show of power over him.

“Dr. Pycelle says it was an attack of angina pectoris," she finally says with a sniff of disappointment. She looks archly at the wine in the bowl of the glass, giving it an idle swirl. "Very sudden. Nothing to be done. It happened just after we dined.”

“We? Was Lancel with you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact he was. Saw the whole ugly affair. He reminds me of you, you know. One can almost squint and forget it is not you. When you were younger of course. So nice to have him here.”

“Please,” Jaime says, putting his back to her to blot out her taunt of a smile.

He grabs again for the chair. He needs something to keep him upright. Something to ground him as all his hopes for this moment crumble around him.

“I remember it so clearly, but one doesn't so easily forget something like that. He clutched his chest and fell right from his chair. If Lancel hadn’t hauled him over to the sofa, he’d have died on the floor like a dog. Wouldn’t that have been something?” she says with flat disinterest.

 _A fall_. Would it be strange to ask to see the body? A brother-in-law with a curiosity to view the body? Most probably.

He looks down at the embroidered seat of the chair. “He only fell from a chair then?”

“I told you I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Cersei,” he says, his grip on the back of the chair tightening. “Enough with the games.”

If he had his right, he could snap the old piece of Baratheon furniture, but his left is still not as strong as the hand he lost. Shame, for it would be more than a little satisfying to act out some violence on an inanimate object. Since leaving the army, he has had nowhere to go with these urges.

A battlefield is a bloody, filthy place, but one does feel more alive there, knowing that death stalks you with sharp certainty. One feels a real purpose.

“I quite agree. You ought to go home.”

He cranes his neck around hardly believing his ears. “Pardon?”

“You ought to go home and practice making an heir for Casterly Rock. Would you settle for some bastard spawn of Tyrion’s inheriting our father’s seat?”

“Has he been whispering in your ear as well then? Let's be clear on one thing: my marriage is none of his business.”

“Nonsense. It’s this whole family’s business. That is how family works, Jaime, and I wonder at your not understanding that.”

Now her color is ugly and the ruffle on her wrapper rises and falls with a betrayal of her fury. But if it is still only her jealousy of his new wife that lies between them, there is a remedy. There is the truth, and he can give her that, suck out the poison, and find comfort again.

“Then if you would make it your business, be assured that is not the nature of our relationship. There is no forthcoming heir to Casterly Rock.”

Her lip curls. “Not the nature of your relationship? What, did you marry the mute little thing for companionship?”

“Father wanted me to marry, so I married. That is the end of it, that is the extent of our matrimonial bond.”

She laughs through her nose, her lips thinning in a mockery of a smile. “Then you are a greater fool than I thought.”


	9. The Vow

Yes, there is uncertainty. An overwhelming amount of it, for everything with Sansa is unfamiliar.

But he finds himself outside her door in spite of it. Wet through to the skin and weary of spirit as much as body, with his good hand pressed to the frame, he rests his forehead against the door, wondering at himself, at what has brought him to this point.

It could be the reassurance that she is his. His to come home to and his to knock at this door, though it is the middle of the night with the rain lashing the windows loudly enough that she will not have heard the arrival of his carriage or the scurry of servants upon the master’s return.

Cersei is not his. Not anymore. Perhaps not ever.

_Robert, Lancel..._

His fingers curl against the wood of their own accord. He gives them no command to fist in and knock, but they do.

It seems an unexpected a thing to her as it is to him that he stands before her, for when the door opens a crack, her eyes are rounded like a deer startled in the wood.

He leans against the frame, sinking his weight into his shoulder. It brings her face, peeking through the crack, a hairsbreadth away. If he slipped an arm about her waist, he could bring her even closer.

“My Lord, you’re soaked,” she says, opening the door an inch farther.

Letting his head incline against the door frame, he attempts a grin. “It’s raining, Lady Lannisport.”

“Yes, but,” she says, eyes darting to the landing behind him, even as she continues to open the door bit by bit as if in invitation.

To light the scene, she holds no candle and neither does he, but a slice of lightning throws her into quick relief against the backdrop of her bedroom, when the door reaches its widest point. Dressed in her nightrail and raised up on the balls of her bare feet, she grips the door’s edge.

“But how did you come to be _soaked_?” she asks, one hand sliding down the door, as she looks once more behind him.

“I helped with the horses. It took some time.”

“The horses? What possessed you?”

“I can stable a horse,” he says, propelling himself off the wall.

He’s consumed by a need to feel useful, to do something, to prove to himself that he still has worth. There has to be a path ahead if he can only find it in the dark. With Lannisport House looming before him and an unknown fate awaiting him inside its walls, unhitching the horses with the stable boy seemed a way to be of some value and not some puffed up layabout.

“Are you mad? You could catch your death.”

“Like Lord Dragonstone,” he says, taking one staggering step forward across the threshold.

“Don’t jest, please.”

He could explain that he’s sat on many a wet battlefield and it never killed him yet, but the lines between her pinched brows giver the appearance of concern for his person, and that’s comforting too, so he’ll allow it. She’s a tender enough creature that she would feel care for the lowliest person. He might as well bask in some of that warmth, though it isn’t quite what he seeks.

He wants to belong to someone. He wants to be needed.

 _I couldn’t count on you_.

“Except, death by chill isn’t what happened with Lord Dragonstone, I’m given to understand. Something to do with his being a puff guts, I gather. Though, you might be surprised to find that the details are still rather unclear even after speaking with the widow herself.”

The concern deepens on her face, as she reaches out a hand for his sodden claw-hammer coat sleeve. “Come, you can tell me about it later. We must get you out of these wet clothes.”

“You mean to assist, my lady?” he drawls.

Even in his current state of exhaustion, he derives some measure of pleasure from the way she withdraws her hand and wraps it tightly about her waist. It’s a game, seeing what he must say or do to bring a blush to her cheeks. Somewhat dangerous sport, since he increasingly finds the flush appealing. Especially when it is him that puts it there. There are other ways to induce a blush along a woman's neck and cheeks. Precisely what he's sworn has no place in his marriage, this marriage that was neither of their making.

But then, why else did he return to Lannisport House before the funeral ever took place, then to explore what might be found here?

_You are a greater fool than I thought._

He clenches his jaw hard enough to send spikes of pain to his temples to drown out the sound of his sister's syrupy taunts.

“You seem unwell,” his wife says, trying her level best to ignore his innuendo, while maneuvering him around the door she aims to close behind him.

Allowing him inside her room at this hour, seeming half-mad and wholly unexpected is just the sort of thing she'd do, he's coming to realize. Not that it doesn't disturb her calm. He can tell from the firm set of her mouth and the quick dart of her hands that it has affected her. But she does it anyway. Out of compassion or a sense of what is right.

She has been a better wife thus far than he deserved. Even if Sansa was adept only at running a household and representing his house within the neighborhood with aplomb, it would be more than he deserved. But he rather thinks she’s already done more than that for him. Otherwise, he would not feel it necessary to guard himself against her charms. A rather shabby guard in the privacy of her room.

So, he fled Dragonstone nearly as quickly as he made for it. He’s come home to his wife to see whether Tyrion was right and there is something better to be found here than whatever his cold sister has to offer in return for his dedication and love.

He lets the weight of his body carry the door shut with a dull clunk.

“Have you ever undressed a man?” he prods further, but she surprises him by reaching out for the first button on his coat.

“I’ve undressed a boy, when an extra hand was needed. Is it so different?”

“It could be,” he says, lowering his chin to watch her fingers work the brass buttons through the holes as adeptly as they move over ivory keys.

First one, then another button pops through, until the front of his coat falls open, exposing the pattern of rain that has soaked through his waistcoat and below.

The darkness, the setting—it's a rather affecting scenario. More than he's entirely at ease with, though he's the one that sought her out. Enough to make his heart pump in his chest. He hasn't kissed her, but he could so easily. With her hair plaited and pulled aside, he could kiss behind her ear, along her neck. He could taste those lips she forever dimples with the bite of her teeth.

He could savor what there is here to discover with his wife, save for his near state of collapse.

That and her innocence: she speaks with prim certainty, “You’ll warm up with this off,” as she urges him off the door, tugging at his sleeve.

Her manner of determined practicality in the face of this knife's edge intimacy has its own charm. It reminds him of the way she dealt with Tommen, and it would be a great shame to sully it with some dark temptation. Surely. It's not cowardice that freezes his limbs, as her hands yank and pull at his cuffs and lapel with her mouth pursed together.

It might be a shame after all, but he can still picture smudging her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.

He swallows against the sound of frustration she makes in the back of her throat. The wet layers of his clothing want to adhere together, making the process of disrobing more difficult than normal. His utter inaction isn’t helping either. He's done little more than catalog her motions and his body's reaction to her like some foreign observer. Tension stands out in the flex of tendons in her neck above the ruffle of her nightrail just as if her head was tipped back upon a pillow.

Clearing his throat, he forces himself to pull his arm through the sleeve she struggles with to little end. His shoulder twinges, seizing up: he’s gotten too cold.

“There,” she says, taking the coat from him and folding it in half and then again.

She holds it away from her body. The sodden garment would render the cotton of her nightrail more transparent than it already is, should she allow it to rest against her middle. Women’s fashions grow sheerer with every passing season, but Sansa’s choices do not trend towards the titillating. Nor does her night attire serve that purpose, when she is perpetually alone. She went to bed earlier this evening, while he was on the road, unaware that she would be disturbed tonight.

“I startled you, coming to your door.” It’s not a true apology, but those have never come easy for Jaime. “I was overly eager to be reunited.”

Or consumed by some fantasy of her or of what could be. He couldn't quite say as of yet.

Lifting his right arm, he pulls it across his body, holding fast to the elbow. The stretch does little to relieve the bunched tension in the muscle.

“You surprised me, my lord,” she says, draping the coat over the back of a harp shaped chair. “I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

That makes him look up from his waistcoat, where he’s set to work at the buttons down its front. Did she assume like his brother that his intention was to abandon her? Did she hope for it?

“Disappointed?”

“No, my lord. It would be a most unfortunate thing.”

He frowns at that and goes back to his task. Freeing the last button, he shoulders out of the waistcoat with a heavy sigh. “Much talked about, I’m sure.”

“Lonely,” she corrects him, holding out her hands for the next soggy item.

His knuckles brush her open palm. The shock of her warmth against the chill that has sunk into his bones brings an answering low pull from his body.

He swallows hard, as she turns to perform the same task of neatly folding and hanging.

“Well, I returned, and you were spared going.”

His cravat having been discarded in the carriage at some point during the journey, he grabs for the back of his collar. The starch has completely melted, leaving it a sodden mess. He gives the muslin a good haul to free it from his breeches. His head pulls free just in time to see his wife turn and then quickly put her back to him.

He huffs. So much for her expertise in the undressing of males. There must be a vital difference in undressing little brothers and a husband after all.

Poor timing for maidenly inhibition, however, for the buttons on the narrow fall of his buckskin breeches are some of the worst to manage without a second hand. Nor has their wetness improved on their fickle immobility, he realizes, trying to make his left thumb push the leather covered button through.

He grits his teeth against a shiver that threatens to run up his spine with his skin bared to the cold of the room. Lady Lannisport was right: the sooner he’s free of this wet clothing, the better.

“How was your sister?” she asks, head pivoting far enough that she might be able to see him if she would raise her eyes from where they seem fixed upon the floor.

“I don’t want to speak of it,” he says, popping the first button with a grimace.

His riding boots are a hassle nowadays too. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sent the young servant who met him at the back entrance away. Alton wouldn’t keep his back turned, while consumed with maidenly reserve.

“Why didn’t you want to come?” he says, forcing the second button with a grunt.

It’s weighed on him. He thought he’d ascertained the reason before he arrived at Dragonstone—a reluctance to be thrown in with his family again—but after his sister so coolly dismissed him, he began to question everything with a fresh eye to his worthlessness.

_I couldn’t count on you._

“I did offer to come with you, my lord.”

Clinging stubbornly to the skin, the breeches finally pass over his hips with some effort. He gets them down to the point where they bunch above the boots, and he exhales heavily. Another shiver threatens to rake up his back, as he grabs for the dainty turned leg chair, where she has deposited his clothing and turns it round, so he might begin removing his boots.

He can feel how the stockings have rolled inside them, gone slack from the rain, before he even gets the first one off. At least they aren’t stained with mud and blood.

“Yes, but let’s not dissemble: you didn’t want to come with me,” he says, gripping the heel of the right boot balanced on his knee.

“I don’t like Dragonstone.”

That wasn’t the response he expected. He cocks his head at her, as his boot jerks free and falls to the floor. Actually, it’s a more welcome answer, for it is no reflection on his failings and it is an opinion he freely shares.

“You’ve been there,” he says, voice strained by the contorted position he’s in.

“Yes, my lord. During my... during my previous engagement.”

“Ah, well, there we agree perfectly then.” He’ll never be able to think of the place without feeling sick to his soul. “A horrid old place, isn’t it? It feels as if the walls have eyes.”

Eyes that observed his sister dispatching him with cruel indifference.

_Robert, Lancel..._

He could heave it across the room, but he stills the tendrils of anger that tighten his limbs and allows the second boot to the floor.

“You dislike it that much?” he asks, seeking some elaboration on her comment.

Facing the wall with hands before her, she gives no opinion on his estimation of the merits of Dragonstone. While he tilts his head to one side and then he other, trying vainly to relieve the stiffness there, she provides no response at all as the silence between them stretches on.

It would seem they are at an impasse. Best to force himself off this chair with his remaining strength and stumble off to his bedroom, where he can burrow beneath the bedclothes and wait alone for the morning light.

“Shall I leave you, Lady Lannisport?” he asks, rubbing his hand down the length of his left thigh, trying to work some warmth into it.

The prickle he feels is either from the cold or his leg has fallen asleep. It would be embarrassing to lose his footing, when he stands again. He can’t imagine what she’d do if required to face him now, sitting bare upon her dressing chair or worse, sprawled upon the floor.

If he had the energy, he would goad her into it and damn the consequences to his resolve to keep their relationship within a certain set of boundaries.

“You’ll need a blanket,” she says, twisting around to gather up the throw spread across the foot of her bed.

It could be a thoughtful gesture or one born of her horror at the thought of him trooping down the hallway in the altogether. Either way, it forces one corner of his mouth to hitch up.

“Thank you,” he says, bracing his hands on his knees before he stands.

He should have only buttressed his weight on the left, he thinks with a wince. Where the prosthetic attaches, the stump is rubbed from his exertion with the horses, leaving it almost raw.

There's a gnaw of disappointment at being driven from her room once again, but at least once he’s alone, he can remove the damned thing.

“My apologies for disturbing your slumber,” he says, taking the throw from her, as another branch of lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating her willowy frame.

“Wait,” she says after the clap of thunder that follows.

Turning almost fully towards him, she draws her ginger plait over her shoulder, fingers teasing the end, where it curls below the blue ribbon that's a fair approximation for the shade of her eyes. Eyes he cannot see. Downcast, she sucks her lower lip between her teeth.

Someone ought to do the same to her. Her husband perhaps.

He hasn’t yet unfurled the throw, but he lets it fall loose before him, while she struggles with some indecision and he battles his own.

“The servants won’t have warmed your sheets.”

He has no wish to invite someone into his space, nor the energy to wait for a servant. “I shall manage without.”

“Mine have already had the benefit of the bed warmer.”

And a warm body besides, Jaime thinks, glancing between the scarlet and gold embroidered curtains, where the bed sheets bear the lingering indentation of her body.

If he stays, he won't be left alone with his thoughts. He won't have to wonder how long he has been deceived. With his body curled around his wife's, what space would there be between them for thoughts of Cersei?

“Should we risk it, you think?”

“I trust you’ll behave,” she says as primly as his sister’s much despised governess ever sounded.

 _Lonely_. She did say it, but she must be remarkably lonely to seek his company.

“I shall do my best, Lady Lannisport,” he says with false gravity that she doesn't miss if the toss of her plait over her shoulder is any indication.

That would be something of note, for her to think him good and trustworthy, as well as brave. Gentle he isn't certain he's capable of.

He follows her lead, circling the bed, as she climbs atop it, kneels, and finds her way back to her slightly off-center position within the tall bed. Since she's already curled away from him on her side, he lets the throw drop to the floor before he slides in beside her and flops onto his back. The ropes on this bed seem to have been more recently tightened than his own. It's such a distinct relief that he groans, lifting his arms over his head to indulge the free stretch of his well-supported body. He reaches further, pressing his hand flat against the headboard, and hisses through his teeth at the stab of pain in his stump.

She twists beneath the bed sheets to face him with that same crinkled look of concern from earlier. “Did you hurt yourself with the horses?”

“No,” he says, lowering the prosthetic gingerly back to his chest. “It’s this Devil hand.”

“Do you normally sleep with it on?” she asks, and without waiting for his shamefaced answer, she reaches over for his arm and draws it towards herself. “Shall I help?”

Ivory, wood, and leather held on to what is left of his arm by straps—it’s as expensive and innovative as these things come, and yet, he despises it. It’s supposed to feel natural to the touch, but he knows it does not. How could it? Warm flesh and blood replaced by this dead thing?

His injury made him repulsive to Cersei. Where once they were mirror images of each other, so alike that they could fool her governess from afar, now he was marked as different, less than.

So, despite the discomfort, he wears it, covers it with a glove and a frilled cuff, and hopes to disguise his misfortune.

His wife does not recoil. Not at the hand, nor where his stump ends without a sleeve to disguise it.

His heart climbs in his throat, watching her fingers slip the leather tether through the small brass buckle that secures it to his arm.

“You look like him, you know,” she says, looking up through pale lashes at him.

“Who?” he asks with roughened voice, as she finishes with the second buckle, the tine clinking softly as she pulls the leather through.

The prosthetic is free and he can see the angry scarred flesh more clearly. In all her youthful perfection, she would be right to be repulsed.

“Lord Baratheon of Storm’s End,” she says, rolling onto her back.

“Joffrey.”

“Yes. I was afraid, when we married, you’d act like him as well. You don't.”

He breathes in slowly, willing his heart to slow, but with the prosthetic detached and discarded between them, he feels more exposed than his nakedness could ever leave him feeling. He grabs it up and drags the bedclothes with him in his hurry to sit up and stash the thing on the bedside table. It's hardly less obtrusive out in the open there, however, he thinks, staring at it in growing horror.

He looks like Joffrey. Like Lancel too.

_When you were younger, of course._

Rotated away from her, so she won’t see his distress, he pinches the bridge of his nose hard.

“My Lord?” she says, voice wavering. “I shouldn’t have spoke on it.”

He looks over his shoulder down at her. “Let’s flatter ourselves and say he resembled me.”

“Of course,” she answers with quick brightness. “That’s what I meant.”

One more hard pinch and he settles back in beside her, so that they both stare up at the elaborate pleats in the overhead drape of the bed made somewhat indistinct by the stormy darkness.

The bed smells of her—a feminine, sweet smell he is unaccustomed to gracing his pillow. Heady enough that it could keep him awake. That and the pressing reminder that he is without his prosthetic in her presence. Then again, she has never given a sign that she thinks less of him for it. She has only shown him kindness in that regard. Especially tonight.

Not pity, tenderness.

He closes his eyes against the feel of her shoulder brushing his and the smell of her all around him. His humiliation should be a damper on any ardor. His exhaustion too. But his body fights to summon some stamina.

Bodies are terribly inconvenient, which he only truly realized, when his turned against him. His body had always worked perfectly. Things came easily, because he was strong and quick. Then he tried to relearn how to do the most basic things with his left hand, and he learned to hate his body.

A body can be a pleasure though. Even if he's had no cause to think on it for some time.

“I confess,” he says without opening his eyes, for if he refuses to look upon her, he might manage to ignore the pull in his gut, “I’d rather you not recall the resemblance.”

In a way, Sansa was his inheritance, upon Joffrey’s death, but for all her being thrust upon him, it would be a blow to the ego to always have her thinking of him as an imitation of his younger, insufferable relative. He’s had enough of comparisons of late.

Her legs stir beneath the bed clothes, causing them to move against his body—up and down and a waft of cool air as her legs settle again. They’d move against his backside similarly were he to roll over her.

He is not prudish by any measure, but were it to be offered, he would not turn down a nightshirt under these circumstances.

“I’d rather not either,” she says quietly. “I work to forget, for I feel very foolish, very stupid, when I remember.”

His eyes open, her words cutting through his inner tumult. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not stupid.”

She’s too chatty a bedmate, perhaps. Yet, for all his weariness, sleep seems as if it will allude him anyway, so he can’t even bring himself to hold it against her.

“Lord Baratheon said I was.”

Jaime props himself up in the bed and peers down at her, a porcelain pale face and hair bright against the pillow. “Joffrey said that to you?”

Her hands clutch at the bed sheets pulled over her bosom, making them rise and fall with her quickening breath. “It was my fault. I deserved it, I’m sure. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be alone with him, otherwise he’d have had no chance to take advantage.”

His face screws up in bitter distaste at her hurried, incomplete confession. “Take advantage?”

“He was right to say I was stupid little girl.”

The boy is dead, and the way he died is a particularly gruesome form of death on the battlefield. A bayonet in the gut is nasty and drawn out. The outcome certain in spite of any efforts to the contrary.

Moreover, whatever Joffrey did to Sansa was long before she was Jaime’s to defend.

Regardless, Jaime is galled by it. An affront to her person is an affront to him.

He covers his mouth with his good hand, fighting the urge the grab her shoulders and shake the rest of it from her. “What did that unlicked cub do to you?”

She looks off to the side, towards the window, where the storm rages outside. “He was ungallant. Sometimes I recall it and am unsettled.”

“He took some liberty with you? He laid a hand on you?”

His modest, gentle wife, who would never do anything to encourage impropriety of any kind.

His face flushes. His chest contracts. His body readying for a fight with a boy no longer drawing breath.

For all his titles and inheritance, Joffrey was no gentleman. To force a kiss or something else besides.

If he had been allowed to take some interest in the boy, he might have taught him how to respect a lady. Where was Cersei or Robert, when their son was taking advantage of that sort of innocence?

“Don’t make me say,” she pleads with watery eyes. “You’re angry,” she says, shaking her head quickly against the pillow.

“Bugger, not at you,” he says, clasping her bicep. “Is that what you thought?” he demands. Her eyes dart to where he grasps her and he curses under his breath, letting her loose again. “I know you're blameless, sweet girl,” he says, as she sits up in the sheets and he hauls her into his chest.

She’s slim, finely boned; she folds with no effort into his embrace, fitting with such ease that one could almost pretend she was made for this purpose, for him.

“You are _my_ wife. Do you understand me? If he weren’t already buried under a field in Spain, I’d kill him myself.”

She hiccups against his neck, and he slides his hand up her spine, feeling the bumps beneath her nightrail until he reaches the base of her head. 

“I’d thrash any man who thought to be high-handed with you,” he says, burying his left hand in her glossy hair and loosening her plaint with the spread of his fingers. “Anyone who offends you will feel the back of my hand. I swear it, my dear. Come now, I swear it,” he repeats, turning his face into hers.

In his day, he’s sworn many a thing: to protect his sister, to serve the king, to do his duty for his family's future, and more besides. Whilst standing alongside this young lady, he even swore to love and cherish. At times, those vows conflict. That’s the thing they fail to warn you about, when you’re taught on someone’s knee to be honorable and decent.

But he’s always done his best to fulfill his duty. He’s taken pride in that. He’s based his sense of self on it even as he failed over and over again.

And as this lonely girl draws her sloped nose along his sternum and slips her arms around his bare waist, he welcomes this new vow. Yes, he is her defender and he'll protect her against unkindess from any corner. Even if she isn’t yet as dear to him as his words would presuppose.


	10. The Foray

His men are massed at close range on the field. That’s when the French start firing the canisters. Very effective at that range: cuts right through the ranks. There’s no real glory or honor in it, as far as Jaime’s concerned. He thinks all the best soldiers, the best generals were in the past, when war had less to do with an arsenal you pulled on wagons behind you. But it is imminently useful on the battlefield in dispatching troops. Its utility in strategy can’t be denied.

Napoleon’s army is well-outfitted this afternoon; it’s not so dire a situation that they’ve stuffed their canisters with nails and other trash. Lead shot—that is the order of the day, packed into tin canisters and closed by a disk. When fired from the barrel, the canister disintegrates and the shot explodes forth in a conical shape, mowing down the soldiers in its path. A charge can be leveled with one lone blast.

What’s left behind are crippled soldiers: shattered femurs and humeri and the occasional shot-riddled gut. Or in Jaime’s case, a pulverized radius. An inch from the end of the bone, above the wrist is where it finds its mark. His ulna might be damaged too. But it doesn’t matter, whether it’s spared or no. All it takes is the shot striking the larger bone in his forearm with enough force to shred bone and seal his fate.

He hears it at the same time as he feels the concussion. Above the shouts and firing muskets, the high-pitched report slices through the air that fills with fine dust around them. With his sword held aloft and his horse dancing amid the chaos of battle, he is spun sideways by his body’s reaction to the blow.

Even still, he’s uncertain what’s happened to him. Blinking against the dirt that’s been thrown up in his face, he searches for the source of his imbalance. He’s been injured before, but never anything a few stitches wouldn’t fix. Nothing to prepare him for what he sees.

The long white cuff of his glove is gone and the blue and gold edging on his uniform’s sleeve now stained bright red and ripped through. The hand he thought hefted a sword is empty. His precious cavalry sword dropped somewhere into the mud below with his hand gone slack and dangling oddly from the end of his arm even as he attempts to seize the reins of his spooked horse.

His mount, Honor, named by the bowlegged young stable hand, Lewys Piper, is trusty in battle. He’s never known him to rear and dance like this. Without his good hand, Jaime slides from the horse, pulled from his saddle by a nameless grappling hand. With his golden helmet’s visor fallen before his eyes, he hears but can’t make out the stomp of the beast’s hooves, terrified by the shot it must have taken in its flank. Then Honor too is grounded beside him, thrashing dangerously long legs, as the threats around Jaime multiply.

Another whoosh and dirt is thrown up around them again: a second canister has been fired and the concussive force confuses him once more. Without his sword, his instinct is to grab for his pistol and get to his feet. But he can’t find it on his hip, and how would he load it with one hand?

He’s of no use. Not to his men. Not to his country. If he doesn’t get out of here, he’ll be trampled or blown to pieces. Worse yet, his uniform marks him as a useful prisoner. Being on the receiving end of an advancing Frenchman’s bayonet would be preferable to being taken alive.

Jaime crawls, dragging himself through the ranks, one-handed, as the pain, which he did not immediately feel, radiates up his arm with ratcheting intensity. Sometimes he shouts an order to a soldier, who falters nearby. To no purpose: he can’t be sure he’s heard or seen by anyone.

 _I’ll not die here_ , he tells himself with every bent-armed struggle of his body over cratered ground and past dead bodies, whose mouths gape open and eyes will be thick with flies as the fighting dissipates.

 _Cersei_.

The surgeon is a butcher. This place is Hoat's kingdom, where he meets out torture in the name of a cure. The tent is thick with the coppery smell of blood and the sounds of the screams of men dying and men under the knife. Hoat speaks with a lisp and smiles around a thick tongue, while at his work.

Jaime doesn’t want to scream, doesn’t want to seem a coward before the men. But as soon as he is set before the man—he’s huge, for the job takes strength and as much speed as you can muster—and the red cloth is laid out, before ever the linen is tied around his forearm, he begins to shout. Shout and thrash, while the surgeon’s mates try to hold him down.

_Not my hand._

_Not my hand._

_Not my hand._

He fought to live, but in truth, death would be the better fate. He should have died with some dignity on the field, not carried by peasants, who found him on the edges of the battle, to this hospital tent. Only to be sawed upon by this slobbering man wet with blood up to his elbows and down his apron front.

Hoat relishes the job. There’s something wrong with him. Something sick in the core. Why does no one see?

 _Not my hand_.

A pipe is forced between his teeth—to clench around and to daze him with its smoke—and his shouts are silenced.

Yet still they sound if only in his head.

 _Not my hand_.

Below the tourniquet, Hoat makes his first cut. Not with the dreaded bone saw. With something worse: a knife to peel away the skin. Hoat’s mates force Jaime’s shoulders flat and his stomach seizes with the effort of trying to fight free under the torturous flaying. The shouts grow louder, turn to weeping, until he’s begging for it to be done, begging for the saw to finish the job, begging for death.

And still he thrashes, still they hold him down, endlessly. Time loses meaning, while their hands dig like talons into his flesh, trapping him in place. They’ll take his hand. Take his arm. Take a leg. Take his manhood.

 _Cersei_.

 _Cersei_.

 _Cersei_.

He breaks free. Loosened from the paralysis of surgery, he jerks upright, knocking aside something in his hurry to be unbound.

Sucking in air that refuses to quell the burning in his chest, he folds in on himself, covering his eyes to shut out the faces that peered down at him in that tent. He has only one hand to cover his face—the other is gone already, Hoat having done his worst.

There’s always a pile of limbs outside the tent, when the battle is over and the screams have stopped. They’re grey and mottled. They stink. His will be among them.

“My Lord?”

A soft hand skims down his bicep, back up and over his back, moving slowly, obscured only by the cotton of a nightshirt. The soothing motion brings him back. Slowly.

His wife’s room, her bed, her once crisp bedclothes soaked by his sweat and twisted between his legs. And something more besides: her hand upon him.

 _Sansa_.

“Shall I fetch you some wine?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper. Even at that level, he grimaces against the sound. “For your present distress?”

He exhales hard and scrubs his face. But the vestiges of living memory cling. He sees the outlines of their faces in his peripheral vision, clouding out her concerned little frown. He can smell the blood. Feel the scratch off the tarp beneath him.

Hell and damnation, his sweat stinks of fear.

Still she continues with her tender ministrations. He fixes his mind to it, the caress of her hand. The better his focus, the less he feels split between two worlds, two times. Until he can draw an even breath.

“I was shouting?” Ugly things, perhaps. There's no saying.

“Yes, somewhat,” she says, as if he didn’t just yell loud enough to bring every servant down upon them. “I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t right here,” she says, obscuring the truth in that delicate way of hers, smoothing over those things that would otherwise cause discomfort to the people around her.

The king ought to employ her in some diplomatic post. Britain might be free of war if he did.

The truth is very different, no matter how she dissembles, however. Though he hasn’t awoken like this in some time, he knows how it is, when he is beset by these vivid dreams. He fancied himself free of the terrors that used to wake him two and three times a night, so that he spent his waking hours hoarse from the night's shouting. If he suspected they might rear their ugly head again, he wouldn’t have made a habit of coming to her bed.

So as to avoid a humiliating scene and to spare her a fright.

“You were dreaming, my lord?” she asks, her fingers teasing at the nape of his neck, nails trailing lightly.

Gooseflesh breaks out on his cooling skin. Like a giant cat, he wants to lean into her touch, rub against her until her hands move over him with firm surety. For all the embarrassment of her seeing him like this, this is the bodily familiarity of which he’s grown ever more covetous, while keeping to his side of her bed.

Fear so easily fires embers of desire. The body knows no difference between them. Hence, every hedge whore is busy on the eve of a battle and afterwards too, ministering to those who did not fall on the field. But his wife is no adventuress.

“Yes, dreaming of a Sunday stroll,” he says.

“It didn’t seem it,” she says with arched brows, “but I can fetch you something that will put you to rights if you wait here.”

“No,” he says, reaching for her leg beneath the bedclothes, holding her in place.

If she leaves, he's afraid he'll forget where he is again and begin to drown in the darkness of his memories.

Her hand lingers on his back for a moment and then withdraws. He spies it in her face, though she tries to conceal how his touch unsettles her.

He resembles them: Joffrey, Lancel.

_When you were younger, of course._

With a growl of frustration, he releases her. Lifting his hand to his face, he presses his fingertips along the orbital bone of one eye and then another. Hard. Stars pop behind his lids. His head feels as if it could crack in half as neatly as a walnut.

There is a walnut tree, an old sprawling thing, that grows on the estate of Casterly Rock. He spent hours as a youth, climbing in its canopy amid the fragrant leaves and cracking the shriveled shells open to taste its fruit in the autumn. Cersei might have been a girl, but she could climb just as high. Until the skirts she wore became too long, grounding her forever, while he continued to climb.

“A glass of wine, perhaps,” his wife offers once more.

Rather than relishing it, the way his sister does, when she desires revenge on someone who has done her wrong, something in Sansa revolts at the observation of pain.

At times not so distant, pain was all he had left.

And at the moment, it is the sensation that predominates.

One really shouldn’t ever awaken with a headache, when no drink has been consumed. It is unnatural. Headaches should at least have the decency to develop throughout the day as a result of the day's travails. It is especially untoward to find himself so wretchedly afflicted in this usually pleasant space, where he sometimes forgets his troubles.

Only because she is near.

“Stay put. I won’t have you scurrying about the house like a kitchen maid.”

Under his own power, he can find a servant to fetch him wine if he needs something to buttress his nerves for the day. It would take more than a glass of wine to forget he’s endangered his place here in her bed with this show of weakness, however.

Her protector—what a dreadful joke.

“I frightened you.”

Her composed face doesn’t betray how badly he must have startled her, but one can hardly wake to a man beside you struggling violently with demons without it causing some consternation.

So much for his efforts: it doesn’t come naturally to be gentle, but he does try with her. Throwing her off-balance may provide some amusement in moments of boredom, but frightening her does not. He’s revolted by the prospect. It’s unmanly.

“You didn’t,” she says, lying with sweet assurance.

“I’ll go,” he says, though he makes no move, save to drop his hand into his lap.

“It’s early yet,” she says with a glance towards the window. “It wouldn’t make us horribly idle to lie abed a little bit more, would it?”

It’s true: dawn’s rosy light has not yet broken the horizon, and despite the ruckus he made, silence blankets the house. The servants are not yet moving freely to empty chamber pots and light fires. Should they wish it, they might stay here some time before a serving girl slips through his wife’s door, driving Sansa deeper under the bed sheets.

“No one would think to call _you_ idle, Lady Lannisport. You may sleep for as long as you like.”

“But you did not sleep as well as you ought either,” she says, reasoning through his staying here, as she begins to draw figures upon the bedclothes with her fingertip.

He watches the mindless path of her fingertip. The one she drew over his body some minutes earlier. Compassion overcoming reluctance.

He could nip at that finger. Catch it between his teeth. Suck it into his mouth, while fitting a leg between hers.

He swallows thickly, letting his gaze rake over her rumpled state—hair disturbed, the end of her plait loose, where the ribbon has been lost in the night, nightrail creased, and little lines on her face, where the pillow has left its mark. She looks very fine in her gowns with her hair dressed, but her appeal is greater in its unpolished condition. He is the only man to see her like this. This Sansa is his own, though he does not touch her.

“From time to time,” she says, finger looping back over the path it has just cut, “I have horrid dreams.”

He sucks in a ragged breath. They can indulge in conversation if that is her wish. Even if her touch has put him in mind of a different sort of distraction. That was never an option anywise.

Surprisingly, her little confessions, oftentimes charmingly innocent, are one of his favorite parts of being welcomed beyond the curtains of her bed. He likes to pretend that everything said here is just for him. He hoards her admissions like St. George’s dragon, for anything he doesn't have to share about her with others is that much more precious.

“Of what?” he asks, collapsing back into the mattress and pillows.

She favors the use of a great abundance of pillows. They’re well-stuffed with down and always smell of her, until a servant dares change the sheets.

He isn’t fond of wash day.

“Sometimes of my father. Or my brothers,” she says, tracking the swirl of her fingertip with a down-turned face. “I see their deaths before me. How their faces looked laid out.”

He hums in understanding and pats the place beside him. She considers him for a moment with her remarkable blue eyes before she lowers back down more gingerly than he bothered. This time, however, with a nervous flit of her gaze over him and away, she settles in, fitted right beside him, facing in towards his shoulder with her hands pillowed on one hand. Close enough that her toes tickle his calf.

Her bed has been a respite, and so, once he began visiting her, he rarely returned to his own for more than a few hours. If his father has some servant serving as a foreign agent to feed him information about the dealings within Jaime's household, he will receive reports that the master and mistress are often abed together in the morn, and that should satisfy him.

For now.

In time, it will become evident that there is no heir forthcoming, regardless of their sleeping arrangements.

“It makes my heart pound so hard I think I could die from it, when I wake,” she says, snaking out her hand to cover his heart.

His pulse has slowed since his rude awakening, but her touch is like to make it catch again.

“I don’t know what Robb looked like, when he died,” she continues, her finger now making the same movements over him as it did the bed sheets, tracing feathery curlicues that curl his toes.

He squints his eyes against the sensation, so as not to be entirely consumed by her girlish fidgeting.

“Best you don’t. My nightmares are of war, and I can assure you they’ve nothing to recommend them.” It is not only his wife who makes confessions here; he finds himself opening his veins up to her as well. Sometimes it’s a test to see whether he can shock her properly in all her maidenly reserve. Sometimes he must simply unburden himself to a listener who at least gives the appearance of sympathy. “As you’re amply aware now, I suppose.”

“What do you do when you’re alone?”

“Alone with the nightmares? Nothing this nice,” he says, lifting his arm to try putting it around her.

She submits. Curving into his body, she tucks her face into his chest.

“Did you know him? My brother?”

“Know him? Well, yes. In a way. I knew _of_ him. Very promising young man,” he says mostly for her benefit, though Sir Eddard’s eldest was not completely unknown to him. “Yes, very promising.”

Her thigh hitches over his, her hand splays wide over his chest, and his breath catches in his throat.

A simple kindness or two and his lonely wife unfolds like a flower.

He hasn’t kissed her. During the day there’s no proper set of circumstances to do anything more than offer her his arm as a gentleman. Even at night, he hasn’t touched her—not properly. Though his body aches upon waking, reproachful of this restraint, he’s never pursued the fulfillment of the notions that flit before shuttered lids. He has not given in to the fancy of climbing over her, of sliding her nightrail up to her hips, though it would make her his in other ways than by vow.

That would at least be as much a distraction as the sound of her breathing evenly beside him, when he wakes in the night, the gentle rise and fall of her chest drowning out thoughts of his sister or his hand or how he will never reach the heights he envisioned for himself. An even better distraction, if he could balance the need for gentleness with his characteristic impatience.

Of course, he could lose himself in the bargain, fall in love with a girl, who might only be lonely and submitting to his attentions because she is formed to please. An unnerving prospect, when he has so little left to carve up of himself.

Then again, one can only practice restraint for so long.

He pulls her into him, onto him, bringing them face to face. Her gasp of surprise is a delight that tightens his gut. He wants to feel the whole of her, lithe and long. Learn the feel of her, commit it fully to memory. He wraps hers tightly in his arms, so her chest compresses against his, and she bites her pretty, strawberry red lip. It’s a doll-like pucker, glossy from the wet dart of her tongue, ripe, begging to be kissed.

He’s a man of action. He’ll play this hand he’s been dealt and risk losing it all. He must try it. At least once.

Her eyes slide closed or almost so, as he cups the back of her head to pull her in closer. Close enough to feel the ghost of her breath over his face, close enough to nudge her nose with his. A gentle tease. She repays him with a kitten like rub of the tip of her nose against his.

He hums again in growing satisfaction at how his gamble pays off thus far.

Pliant, biddable, that is his wife, though she will respond with firm resolve if pushed and has made her limits known to him. Limits that seem forgotten as her breath expands her bosom against his and he slides his hand down her neck, up, smudging that much contemplated lip with the pad of his thumb.

A little dip of her head and she kisses him. It’s quick. Rushed. Inexperienced and unskilled. Nothing like he wants to do to her, and yet, the boldness of it makes him hold his breath, as she pulls back, eyes wide and fixed upon his mouth.

He grins.

He admires her signs of spirit. He likes even better when she smiles for him on the heels of a show of it.

“What would make you happy?” he asks, palming her smooth cheek.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice achingly breathy.

“Anything within my power, what would you have?”

His brother flaunts their family wealth with greater freedom, so as to win loyalty and friends however false, but Jaime can afford just as easily to give his wife whatever she desires.

He’ll write his father for his mother’s jewels. He’ll have new made in London. A lady’s mount. A pup unsuited for the hunt with a great satin bow tied around the neck for her to dote on. New furnishings for every room and the services of the garden architect. Whatever she would like.

Unaware of the things it makes him desirous of doing to her, she licks that lip of hers again.

“My family. I’d like to see my family.”

His heart stops, his hand too, frozen upon her expectant face. He did promise her anything and now she awaits it, his permission for her to leave him here alone.

Cersei was right: he really is a fool.

“If that would be acceptable, my lord.”

His mouth twitches. “Home to Winterfell?”

Her eyes lower to his mouth again and back up. “I’d send for Arya. A visit would make me happy.”

The sister. The feral little sister. She wants to send for her sister to stay with them. Such a small thing to grant.

“You make the invitations, Lady Lannisport. Invite who you will.”

She smiles for him. Carelessly, as if she is a young lady with nothing but joy to expect from life. His offer brought that pleasure. He could find a myriad of ways to please her if given the chance.

One arm firmly held to her back, he trades their places, Rolling her over, he bears her into the mattress. In her surprise, her mouth is already open and soft, when he presses his lips to hers. And he shows her what it is to really kiss.


	11. The Folly

Regret. Regret consumes Jaime since his wife did just as he advised and invited who she would. Namely, her family. These Starks, who absolutely can’t take a hint.

Yes, it is her right as lady of the house to have them here at her invitation, and he is the one to have reminded her of that fact. But it has turned out to be damned inconvenient having them here. For whereas previously, he was eager to avoid being alone with his wife, he now would welcome privacy and can’t seem to get it.

Her sister is everywhere, making herself a nuisance. Not just the sister, but the cousin too. Sir Jon, who escorted the young Miss Stark to Lannisport House, and has outstayed his welcome by several days. It should have occurred to Jaime that the Dowager would not think to send her youngest unattended on such a journey, but could she have not spared the young widow? Surely, having her underfoot is no great source of joy for Catelyn and she would appreciate being rid of her for a space. But no, she sent the cousin instead, which is just Jaime’s present luck.

 _Damned inconvenient_.

Jogging down the stairs, Jaime calls out to Wat, who he spies disappearing through the salon doorway, going about some errand what will have to wait. “Wait one moment, Wat.”

She holds, turning back to face him.

“Where is Lady Lannisport?”

The woman cocks a brow at her master, no doubt put off by his gruffness, his tone implying quite clearly that she is somehow at fault for his wife’s absence. Wat can’t be blamed, of course, for Sir Jon’s or Miss Stark’s presence here. Jaime is the cause, having been carried away by sentiment and lust for his sweet wife and inviting this menace into his home.

“My Lady went for a walk, my lord.”

“A walk,” he repeats, giving the banister a slap, as he reaches the last step. “Is that so?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“ _Where_ did she walk, Wat?” he says, rapping the banister three times.

Regret makes him irritable.

His servant weathers his impatient gesture with a withering look. “Down the south path.”

“To the gardens then.”

“Farther, I believe,” his housekeeper says, jostling something in the pocket of her apron, as if she is the one being inconvenienced.

He steps down the last step and leans into the bend in the banister. “Farther than the gardens. The upper pond?”

She heaves a great sigh. “No—”

“Just out with it. Don’t make me guess Lady Lannisport’s whereabouts.”

Propping her hands on her hips, Wat walks back towards the center of the great hall. “Lady Lannisport may have mentioned wanting to show Sir Jon the folly.”

 _Of course_. What a perfect spot to entertain a lovesick cousin.

Jaime crosses his arms over his chest, tucking the bad one beneath. “May have?”

“Yes, my lord,” Wat says, as if this is all just now occurring to her. “She may have said something in passing.”

He nods sagely. “Did you pack them a picnic as well, Wat? Make a proper outing of it?”

How many months have gone by, since he brought her home? No more than a season. How long did it take for his household to be fully in league with her? Not even half that long if he is any judge. Should his wife wish it, she could encourage a rebellion against him with very little effort, he suspects.

Her fate may initially may have been in his hands, but increasingly, his fate is in his wife’s hands. And still, he can’t get within a foot of her without being observed by her relations.

“My Lady made no such request. Shall I have a basket sent, my lord? Cook could have something wrapped up that would suit.”

Jaime growls, as he shoulders around his housekeeper and makes for the south side’s main door. He’ll retrieve her himself, fetch her back presently. He can’t trust a footman or a maid to do it. If he sends a servant, they might take their sweet time, and he’d prefer to swiftly nip in the bud her traipsing through the ruins with her cousin.

He trusts her to behave herself, of course. Dowager Lady Stark raised a most proper young lady, who would never shame herself or him. But hearts are less easily managed. He’d prefer she not fall in love this afternoon, while he searches for her hither and yon. That he is forced to hunt about for his wife at all is mortifying enough without the added indignity of a budding love affair within his own house.

The bloody folly. Did his mother never think what kind of position it might put him in to have a decrepit ruin on his estate, where his wife could entertain threadbare cousins in its shadows?

Of the two visiting relations, Sir Jon forms the bulk of Jaime’s problem, in spite of the fact that Miss Stark seems always to be everywhere. Case in point, striding from the house, he catches sight of the long-faced menace running across the yard with something held in her fist.

She doesn’t slow upon being spotted by him. The girl has no shame.

Her behavior would be somewhat entertaining if she was not an obstacle to having his wife to himself. An obstacle at least Jaime can rely on occasionally disappearing herself. Sometimes to explore where she ought not—there was an incident with a tree and torn skirts and a lump on her brow that sent Sansa into a dither about the threat of broken bones and the necessity of mending stockings. That particular incident required hiding his amusement behind his fist. Though from the frown his wife cast his way, he did not hide it well enough.

Sometimes Miss Stark disappears simply to be free of her elder sister’s scolding. For Lady Lannisport and Miss Stark still find reason to argue: though they were happy enough to be reunited, disagreements arise with some regularity. Those disagreements occasionally end with Miss Stark flouncing from the room, which means one less Stark about.

For all these reasons, Jaime finds the sister to be the lesser of two evils. Sir Jon is not so easily unseated. He has established himself at Jaime’s wife’s side like a watchdog. Like a shabby wolf.

Without a master of hounds, Jaime will have the deal with this pup himself.

“What do you have there, young lady?” Jaime shouts across the lawn to his sister-in-law.

“An apple,” she calls back.

“You’re an apple thief, are you?”

She stops short of him in a skid of gravel, and lifts the apple to her mouth. She takes a monstrous bite, a bite that could rival any hungry tramp’s.

“I ought to have you punished for that. What's next? Poaching?”

She swallows hard. “I might. If it pleases me.”

“You could always just _ask_ , Miss Stark. There are servants who would fetch a bushel for you.”

She licks at her wrist, where juice has run down her arm.

Sansa would never act in so savage a manner. Should she though, should be possessed, he would unravel completely. Then again, he might do it for her. Seize her wrist and taste her pulse as well as the juice of the apple. The notion makes him shift uneasily on his feet.

He clears his throat. “I’ll not call the constable if you tell me if seen your sister.”

“I don’t know. We’ve not been together all afternoon. You imagine Sansa would deign to climb an apple tree? She despises fun.”

He glances down to her muddied skirts—two inches deep, perhaps three. At least they’re not torn this time. A good scrub and Sansa might not be the wiser about this unbridled episode.

“I think she rather has a different idea of what is fun. Another ascent was attempted?”

“Attempted and achieved,” she boasts with a celebratory lift of her apple. “Nothing for it. Best ones were up high.”

“If you don’t stop scampering up trees, Miss Stark, your sister is liable to take a hairbrush to you, and you won’t find a champion in me. I won’t defend you.”

“Course not. You’re afraid of her.”

“Of your sister?” He shifts again. “What an interesting conclusion you’ve reached.”

She goes in for a second bite nearly as big as the first.

“I said what I said,” she replies, mouth full of half-chewed apple.

He’s stared down death how many times during the course of his career as an officer? Down canons and muskets and sabers?

He is at home with risk and fear, but Lady Lannisport is not one to inspire it. Who would ever think to be afraid of Lady Lannisport? She’s more house cat than lioness, despite having wed into his family. A brave thing perhaps, but no threat.

The little savage is being perfectly absurd. No doubt to vex him.

“But _I’m_ not afraid of her,” her sister says with a waggle of her head. “I’m not afraid of anyone.”

“You haven’t seen enough of the world to make that bold claim, Miss Stark.”

“I’ve seen enough. Enough to know ugly comes in all shapes.” She twists the apple to a side unspoiled by her vicious bites. “Even comes grand lord shaped.”

Jaime’s mouth twitches. “Is that right?” He’s kept it tucked behind his back. Even here with this impossible girl, whose opinion of him doesn't matter, he's kept it hidden. Still she brings it up. “Because of my hand, you mean?”

She hums around another bite. “Your fancy new hand isn’t the thing that spoils the figure you cut in this world.”

Jaime doesn’t have time for this nonsense. He scuffs his boot in the gravel. “Why not go to the stable block? Entertain yourself there like a good girl.”

There’s a young servant in the stable—built like a bull. Jaime caught the boy with Arya, when he went out to ride for the afternoon and be free of Sir Jon’s insufferably dour presence. The pair of them sitting in the hay like gurus and only the boy having the sense to get up, when Jaime strode in.

He hasn’t said a word about it, but he wagers his wife wouldn’t be pleased by the association. Which is precisely why he’s kept quiet. If he opens his mouth, that will be an end to it. With Arya wasting her time with a stable boy, that’s a few minutes where she's out of his hair. Surely, she’s not so stupid as to do anything more than flirt with the boy, so no real harm done.

“I do as I like,” she says with a flip of her head.

What she likes in this moment is flounce off in the direction of the stable block. Just as he predicted she would.

People say behind Lord Casterly Rock’s back that for all his personal failings, Tyrion has the mind most like his father’s. Cersei thinks she’s the one who takes after the head of their grand family. Though no one draws the paternal comparison between his eldest and Lord Casterly Rock, Jaime isn’t entirely incompetent, when it comes to reading people. There is some of his father in him. He can properly judge. And just as he suspected he would, following a lengthy walk to the folly, a walk his wife made alone with her cousin, he finds her standing amid the ruins with Sir Jon.

The gentleman has his hand balanced on the half-wall of what was once a tower, looking much too comfortable, as he leans in to talk with Sansa. Much too contentedly alone with Jaime’s wife. Until Jaime’s presence is made known to them. Then the dark-haired fellow looks miserable, which only confirms for Jaime how timely his arrival on the scene is. The man is too fond of Jaime’s wife by half.

“Forgive the interruption, my dear,” he says, the endearment deployed pointedly for their observer.

His wife pivots on her kid leather slippers. Turning into the light, the bright afternoon sun bathes her fine features beneath her intricately woven straw bonnet. She does not look so miserable at his sudden appearance. Indeed, she looks lit from within as well as from without—the picture of youthful beauty. _His wife_. He alone knows what it is to press a kiss to that bowed lip that turns up at his approach, the soft give of it.

“My Lord,” she says, holding out a gloved hand palm up in invitation. “I was just taking Sir Jon on a tour of the grounds. We had not yet come out this way and it is so charming.”

Uncertainty spoils what should be delight at her visible sign of pleasure. For it pricks at him, making him wonder: is her pretty glow caused by his arrival or did it precede his coming? It might have been put there by her cousin’s presence. The latter possibility makes Jaime want to reel her in close by her offered hand. Bend her head back and nudge at her nose until she forgets this somber relation and parts her lips for him.

No, she is no threat. Except to his ego—or something worse, something he imagined untouchable.

“Yes, I’d heard I’d find the pair of you here,” he says, taking her hand in his.

It was one thing for his wife to greet her sister with a warm embrace, when first they arrived in the glossy black Stark carriage adorned on the door with a silver wolf. That is expected. That is right and good. What was unsettling was the greeting bestowed upon Sir Jon. It did not sit well with Lord Lannisport. How she threw her arms about his neck in a most familiar way, and he responded in kind, practically lifting Jaime’s wife off the floor with the enthusiasm of his embrace. It’s not a sight Jaime will not soon forget.

Sir Jon might need some reminding, however, as to who has the greater rights here. Jaime is her husband. That trumps a history with a jumped-up relation, whose title was stolen from her dead father and brother. A title that sits with obvious unease upon his shoulders. If he ever wanted it in secret moments, he feels suitably guilty about having gotten it at last.

With a rub of his thumb over her fingers, Jaime gives her hand a gentle press before letting it drop.

Her bosom rises and falls beneath the gathered chiffon of her fichu, as she pulls her hand in flat to her gown, a sweet thing dotted with tiny blue roses, very much in her customary fashion. “Netley Abbey, I believe, it once was. Is that not right, my lord?”

“Yes,” he says absently, though he has no recall of its origins.

Perhaps Wat told her the specifics. His housekeeper is the one who gives tours to curious sightseers after all. It’s her job to know such things.

“White Monks,” she continues with growing confidence, as he reaches behind her. “Well loved in the neighborhood.”

He grasps the trailing pale blue silk ribbon tied about Lady Lannisport’s waist, and her regained composure is lost just as quickly, as she cranes her head to spy what he’s about. He lets the ribbon slip through his thumb and forefinger, watching its deliberate, slippery slide between his fingers, until reaching the fishtailed end, when he lifts his eyes to hers, ready with a slow smile for her.

He’s ready to turn a very different kind of grin on Sir Jon too. That gentleman seems suitably skewered in place, as Jaime lets the ribbon drop back in place without another look. He can’t chance another look. It would be too easy to tug and have it come untied.

“I suppose the abbey was a victim of King Henry,” she says finishing her history lesson on a shuddery sign.

She clasps her hands before her, putting herself back together in that careful way she has.

He could take her apart altogether—not just the ribbon about her slim waist. Sir Jon might trounce him in terms of length of acquaintance but Jaime has the upper-hand in privilege of access. Or he would if he could ever get her alone for one bloody hour. He could manage more if blessed with two.

“My mother had these ruins brought here,” Jaime says, reaching up to adjust the knot of his cravat, which suddenly feels tight in the early autumn heat. “I’m glad Lady Lannisport thought to show them to you. Better enjoyed as a pair though. You ought to find yourself a wife, sir. Marry. The churchmen do recommend it for what ails.”

“And do you, Lord Lannisport?” Sir Jon asks, withdrawing his hand from the wall and straightening up with a tug on his coat. “Recommend it?”

Jaime raises his brows. “I do.”

Though, he’d recommend it more if he didn’t have her relations coming between them at present.

“I’m surprised. A bachelor of your age? You no doubt had chances before.”

Jaime tips his chin up, better to look down his nose at the young man. “Yes, my advanced age. But, with a temptation as lovely as your cousin? How could I not recommend it?”

“Lord Lannisort,” Sansa says with a demur sideways peek from beneath her bonnet.

The rosy bloom on her cheeks only proves his point. Without question, Jaime put that flush there.

“No, only a blind fool would disagree. Your cousin isn’t blind or an idiot, unless I’ve misjudged him. He can’t be unaware of your charms.”

From the man’s strangled look, Sir Jon has noticed and feels rather pinched about his noticing. He should, the unwanted interloper.

“Lady Lannisport has been much admired since we were children.”

“Jon thinks me vain.”

Sir Jon tugs on his coat again. Perhaps Jaime could recommend a tailor.

“It isn't vanity, when its balanced by other virtues,” Sir Jon says.

“Well then, it’s no surprise I succumbed, for Lady Lannisport has virtue aplenty. What is your reason then, Sir Jon, for abstaining? You’ve a title. You’ve come up in the world. Why not find yourself a pretty wife?”

Someone who could bear a husband cloaked in insecurity.

“I have no plans to marry presently.”

“There was that one young lady, Jon,” Lady Lannisport says with an encouraging little nod, but Sir Jon gives a quick shake of his head in the negative.

“You ought to let Lady Lannisport find a suitable wife for you. She has a way about her. People do say she reminds them of my mother.”

“Do they?” Sansa asks, twisting to face him. “Your mother was fair haired.”

“It’s commentary on your other attributes, my lady. Other virtues if you will. My mother represented the best of us.”

Sir Jon has lifted a hand to his temple and looks as if he might take some break in the conversation to duck free of this scene, but Jaime isn’t quite done with him. He’d like to be done with this and not have to give this situation with her cousin any further thought, so he turns his attention on the man once and for all.

“Lady Lannisport has taken up that mantle now. It’s as if she was born to the role. She could inform you in grave detail, I’m sure, about my other more unpleasant relations. She shines by comparison.”

Sir Jon squares his shoulders. “I’ve already been made aware.”

“Not all bad things,” she quickly interjects but without the kind of sincerity necessary to sell her assertion.

Apparently, it's pointless to lie. Even one of her pretty little lies that she spins so effortlessly to spare feelings and put people at ease. She’s told her cousin then, the details of what’s happened between her and his family. Some shared intimacy spooled out over the course of a long walk or bowed heads over a tea table.

That makes him irritable too, irritated enough to grit his teeth and imagine slapping the man across the cheek, but Jaime knows how to drive home the blade another way.

“She’s good to put up with us and me.”

“Yes,” Sir Jon agrees too readily.

Jaime grins at him. “Only a man knows how _hard_ it can be, being solitary. You must find it _dreadfully hard_ , Sir Jon, being always alone. What’s the real delay? Lady you had in mind snapped up already?”

Sansa tilts her head, asking in all her sweet innocence, “Did Miss Ygritte marry?”

He’s as pale as his cousin, and the color rising from beneath Sir Jon’s high collar betrays his discomfort as much as his curt answer in the negative.

“Jon admired her, I’m sure, and you know she had hair as ginger as mine.”

“Really? What a remarkable coincidence,” Jaime says, holding his arm out for his wife.

Unless Sir Jon truly is simple-minded, he can’t be ignorant that Jaime sees through him.

“It would be a decent walk, but we could take your cousin up through the meadow to the shell grotto. It’s just as charming as this. Shall we?” Jaime asks, lifting his chin towards the north, where the grotto lies hidden from the house on the backside of a hill.

“Another time," Jon says stepping past them. “I should go back to the house. I promised Arya I would once we were finished.”

Jaime pulls his wife in closer to his side, a movement Sir Jon tracks with his grey eyes. She comes easily, bending towards him.

“You might have better luck, sir, if you look for her in the stables. Last I heard, that’s where she was headed.”


	12. The Interruption

Jaime stalks through the great hall, swatting at the outer leg of his buckskin breeches with his riding crop, each long stride throwing a long shadow across the floor and halfway up the wall. The source of the light emanates from the library. It will be Sansa.

The little sister doesn’t keep odd hours finishing novels. That is his wife’s practice. At least it is when a novel has keenly captured her attention. Miss Stark might be making trouble elsewhere, but she is not likely to be found reading in his library. Which means, his wife should be alone for once, since her guard dog left this afternoon.

Lord Lannisport was not present for the farewell to the much-cherished cousin. He purposefully absented himself, only to return now long after the sun has gone down. He wished to avoid bearing witness to much about the day’s dreaded event and even with the man gone, he could do without knowing how it affects his wife. To that end, Jaime could go to his room and she would be none the wiser to his coming home. He could remain in ignorance of how she fairs now that Sir Jon is gone. But his feet carry him towards the light, driven by the same gnawing need for movement that has carried him through the afternoon.

Though brighter than the murky hall, reading by this low light will invariably strain her eyes, but there she sits with naught but the fire to illuminate her page. Curled into the arm of the sofa, feet tucked up to the side, she lounges in greater informality than he is accustomed to witnessing.

It is almost worth going unnoticed, so as to observe her in this state of repose. Then again, that thing inside of him, which churned relentlessly throughout his ride, demands he been seen. Thankfully, the choice is made for him—reveal his presence or no—by the heels of his boots, which give him away.

His wife looks up from her book, eyes brightening.

“There you are,” she says as softly as a caress.

Is how she looks and speaks to him different than how she speaks to others? How she spoke to Sir Jon? Is it even real?

It wasn't with Cersei.

He leans into the doorframe, swishing his crop. It makes a satisfying sound against the cuff of his riding boots. For good measure he does it again—harder.

“You’ve been gone for so long,” she says, placing a finger between the pages, as she straightens up.

Her slippered feet sweep to the side, unfolding until they are beneath her. Just like that, she is perfectly presentable once more, as some virginal Stark governess instructed her always to be. His job ought to be to wear away at perfect veneer. He could test what he might do to achieve with her a less proper position on the sofa for a start.

He’s kept away thinking he might find her in a rather different mood than one of this relaxed repose. A fit of melancholy in the wake of Sir Jon leaving would be unbearable. Still he envisioned it, in great detail, his coming home to her weeping, hair frizzed and reddened cheeks wet with tears spilling freely. The vision made him grit his teeth and kick his horse harder. But the reality before him is different: she seems perfectly composed.

Then again, his wife is rarely not composed. She has a great skill in remaining outwardly unmoved. What goes on inside is harder to access.

“You missed dinner _and_ supper,” she says, crossing one ankle over the other.

For all her composure, her skirt is partially caught up from her previous position, exposing her ankle. Not just the ankle, but above, where her calf begins to round, so he can make out her white silk stockings crisscrossed by the ribbons of her slippers. The hitch of her skirt exposes the hollow of her anklebone, narrow enough that he could encircle it with his good hand and have his fingers touch. Then pull her out along the length of the sofa. That would certainly do something about her rigid propriety.

She is unaware of being uncovered to his gaze. Otherwise she would straighten herself out, his being her husband or no. No doubt this knowledge would turn her a fair shade of pink too. His gentle, modest wife, whose affections feel more a mystery to him than they did even a fortnight ago, when she showed no small enthusiasm for learning from him what it is to kiss.

“Shall I ring and have refreshment brought for you, my lord?”

“No.”

He lets his weight carry him forward from his perch to find a new one on the high-backed chair opposite her. Taking another swat at his breeches, he leans his right stub of a forearm across the back of the chair, so as to examine her from this safe distance for signs of residual distress. The firelight reflects on her profile, the flames shimmering against the porcelain of her skin. No splotches, no reddened eyes reveal themselves. She looks as untouched from this distance by grief than she did from the door.

She is exquisitely beautiful. As perfect as a statue of a bathing nymph in his mother’s garden poised to welcome a visitor to the edge of the fountain's waters.

The Greeks seemingly made better use of gardens and pools than the English. He has yet only to parade through his gardens with his wife, rather than kissed and petted her under an open sky.

“You’re certain? You must be famished.”

What pulls low in his gut isn’t that sort of hunger.

Tucking his crop under his arm, he grabs for his bright red watch fob and flips the face up to see the time—half past eleven. “Too late to eat.”

Later even than if they were returning from the opera in London. He asked Lady Lannisport if she would like to visit London. Young ladies often dream of such things, but her answer was a firm no. Or rather, _no, thank you, my lord_ , for she is always courteous.

“It is late, my lord. Too late to be out riding. Surely it’s not safe.”

He grins at her. “Afraid I might be taken upon by ruffians?”

“No.”

“Gypsies in the neighborhood, perhaps? You receive the reports from Miss Tyrell. I could thrash them if they were overbold, you know.”

“No, I’m afraid you might break your neck in a fall.”

“I’m a better rider than that,” he says, pushing off the chair, so he might come around to collapse into it.

The coat cuts into his shoulder at the high seam after a long day of riding. He feels a day’s ride like today’s more than he used to. Sir Jon doesn’t know the aches of age, no doubt, which is damnably annoying. Jaime thinks of himself as being in his prime, but these aches would contradict his personal assessment.

He grimaces against its tightness of his coat, rolling his back, as he stretches out his leg before him.

The fire feels good. It’s a cool evening, smelling of autumn already. It seeped into his flesh by the end of the ride, right through his coat and boots. Cool enough that he would have turned back for home if it weren’t for the fear he might go mad if he didn’t keep moving. Even now, his skin itches with inaction.

If he’s been indolent of late, it isn’t from habit. The things which have made Jaime feel alive have always involved force of movement and some risk. Not exactly a receipt for domesticity.

Pulling his crop free, he swishes it back and forth, whipping the tip of his boot. There’s dust on the toe he should have buffed off before tracking it through the house, but it is not his dusty boot that has his wife’s attention, when he rests his head back against the chair. Her face—comprised of exceedingly delicate features—has taken on an almost severe appearance. Pinched and sharp.

Perhaps she doesn’t like being disturbed here in her quietude as much as she initially let on.

“Even skilled riders have accidents, my lord.”

Jaime’s jaw works. It is not his presence she objects to but his words. He spoke without thinking. Sir Eddard took a fall from his horse and did not live to tell the tale. It is, if not the sole source of all her troubles, one of the primary tragedies of her young life: the first in a catalog of calamities that compelled her down a path that led to a marriage to him.

An oily feeling has slithered in his belly since breakfast. Something born of watching how Sir Jon looked at Sansa from across the table. Something he thought he noted in her gaze too. But if Jaime isn’t careful, thoughtlessness will surrender his position as the aggrieved party. It is not often he has the high-ground with her, her being a morally superior person by far.

Of course, he is accustomed to not having the upper-hand with those closest to him. His father commands them all, Tyrion is too clever, and Cersei's cunning and her hold over him long ensured that eventually he conceded whatever point to her.

It is on the field he dominated. Not in life.

He places the crop on the table beside him, and working the fake hand’s thumb underneath the glove on his left hand, he tugs. “My horse is sure-footed and the moon is bright. I was in no imminent danger. And,” he says, pausing to repeat the task with his fake hand’s glove, “a man sometimes needs to be out in the fresh air.”

Not always caged with a wife and her relations. Lovesick relations especially.

“You understand,” he says, bunching the gloves together and depositing them beside the crop.

“I do.” She tucks her book in closer in her lap, letting her finger slip free of the place she was marking. “I certainly don’t begrudge you the exercise, my lord. I’m glad you were out.”

“Were you?” he asks, tapping his foot with the choleric energy his ride did nothing to diminish.

She is usually a strange sort of calmative. But being here in her presence only inflames him further. Whether it is anger, he can’t exactly say. Indeed, it is too stimulating to be purely irritation.

His mind and his body have been too engaged today to no real purpose. At turns he pushed his horse too hard or wandered aimlessly, as his imagination feverishly fixated upon what Sir Jon and his wife might be up to or what he himself would like to be doing with her if given the chance.

Here it is at last. One Stark gone and the other absent, and still he can’t decide how to proceed with her. Push her into some untidy confession from which there will be no return or pursue a different sort of expenditure of energy?

His head hurts. He swears he can feel the outline of his eyes in their sockets.

“So that you might have some privacy, Lady Lannisport?”

“Privacy, my lord?”

“For the day’s touching farewells, of course.”

If the boy mooned at her from across the breakfast table in anticipation of his leave-taking, how did he act when the moment was actually upon them? How did she, when she so willingly threw herself into his arms at his arrival?

He stands to lose a wife he never desired in the first place. Not bodily—he wouldn’t expect Sansa to chase ruin. But having her physically present isn’t quite enough.

The prospect irks. It might have to suit tonight, however.

“Arya was here. Besides, why would I require privacy for such a thing?”

“One never knows.” A log collapses in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks that Jaime turns to observe. He doesn’t bother to look back at her, when he blandly suggests, “Perhaps you ought to have wed Sir Jon.”

Jaime counts to himself: the mantel clock ticks ten times before she responds.

“My Lord?”

“Not to boast of my astonishing forethought on the matter,” he says, tilting his head, “but I did think of it before I proposed to you. Thought I might have a potential rival in him if I did not act with speed.”

“A rival in Sir Jon?”

She sounds properly confused by the prospect, as if it hadn't occurred, but Sansa is not dim. She will have thought of it too—for herself or for her sister.

“Yes, well, not as grand a match as what you ultimately secured, perhaps, but it seems an even more preferable notion now that we’ve all been thrown together and I had the good fortune to assess your attachment.”

“What attachment do you speak of, my lord?”

“Come now, Lady Lannisport,” he says, lowering his voice.

Yes, he should have been bloody well terrified of her from the start, for she quite deftly threatens his tranquility without knowing what she is about.

Unless she dissembles.

“Have I acted amiss?” she asks, as her cheeks begin to turn the exact shade he imagined they would.

“Never,” he says, giving her a sidelong wink. “You do seem very fond of each other, however.” He leans forward in the chair, propping his chin on his hand in a show of reflection. “He’s overly serious and dresses shabbily, but that’s nothing if you’re very fond of him and your family is so fond of him as well. What a happy situation that would be.”

Sansa’s pretty rosebud mouth purses in irritation. “My mother isn’t fond of Jon at all.”

“No? Less fond than she is of me? Surely not.”

“With father buried, she wouldn’t have ever thought to consent to my marrying Jon. So, you can set that possibility aside in this game of yours.”

Jaime rubs his chin before letting his hand drop onto his knee. “Shame. Perhaps this is why men aren't the matchmakers, hmm? I thought I'd hit upon the perfect match.”

“I don’t like this line of conversation.”

“No? Then tell me of the goodbyes. Who behaved badly?”

She blinks once. “No one.”

 _Liar_.

“Was there a good deal of crying? On both parts? Sir Jon does strike me as a man fond of a good cry.”

“You're being obtuse.”

“Am I?”

“Jon spent the majority of my childhood at Winterfell. He and Robb shared a tutor.”

“How cozy.”

There is another lengthy pause before she begins again, and when she does, her curls bounce with the forceful, clipped bluntness of her speech.

“He is like a brother to me. Whatever you mean to imply in perverse jest, he is my cousin.”

He doesn’t mind her matching his mood; he finds it exceptionally appealing. Indeed, it might be why he presses: not for want of a confession but to watch her lose her grip upon her composure. Pick at the thread until she begins to unravel for him.

Though it is the end of the day, her ginger hair is still in perfectly formed ringlets. He could muss them easily enough. Drag his fingers through them as he urges her into the pillows until they’re soft and frizz about her face. Turn her mounting frustration into a different sort of burn.

“And you imagine his being kin is an impediment?” he asks, shifting to the other side of the chair until he rests against its arm. “I despise my cousins. Still, I might have wed one if it served.”

“As it served to marry me,” she says, her bosom lifting and falling, as her hand splays against the cover of her book.

He drums his fingers against his knee. “Yes, a marriage of convenience.”

It’s what they were, and perhaps still are, despite what has passed between them. An unfortunate possibility given his current personal discomfort. What is he supposed to do, however? Ask her what she wants? Like a dog begging for scraps?

 _Pathetic_.

Once, he was the sort of man that wouldn’t have needed to beg for a woman’s affection. Even the proud Dowager Lady Stark, Miss Tully as she was then, took notice. Or at least the young Tully girl did, when they were together at court. Neither of them greeted him as coolly as his wife did upon his arrival at Winterfell. But, he was a whole man then with a profession and an unsullied reputation for military prowess.

“An inconvenient marriage of convenience if you will, since you openly despised me, when we wed,” he adds.

It was only loneliness that made her give in to more from him. Loneliness and her gentle character, which craves attachment. Or perhaps, given certain developments between them recently, it is curiosity, which has driven her into his arms. She is young after all and without experience. That can be a heady inducement.

Jaime remembers well enough. It was the only remarkable thing about his tour of the Continent, architecture, music, and theater abroad holding no real charms. Until that too lost its appeal and he made for home. For the familiar. For Cersei.

“I was wary of you, my lord.”

Does she still see his nephew’s face, when she looks up from her novels or embroidery and sees him sitting across the way? Here beside the fire, where he wants nothing more than to roll her underneath him?

Sir Jon has the Stark look. He would never be mistaken in a fleeting glance for Cersei’s dead ungentlemanly brat.

“I know you comprehend what I feel, when it comes to Jon. For all your talk of despising your family, you don’t despise your sister. Quite the opposite.”

Jaime sucks in air, holds it until it begins to burn, and then exhales hard.

Robert made accusations once. Right before he drove Jaime from his house. He didn't meant to drive his wife to levy something similar.

“What do you mean by that, my lady?”

“You understand what it is to be devoted to family, though you're acting as though you require a reminder.”

He lurches to his feet and stalks over to the mantel, skin crawling. Lifting a hand to grip its dentil molding, he looks down into the flames.

“ _Devoted_.”

“Please don’t misinterpret my affection for Jon,” she says, voice tight with restraint. “It isn’t fair. I’ve given you no reason to mistrust me.”

“I trust you to do what’s right,” he says, resting his head against his raised arm. “But you’ve taken the wrong line, Lady Lannisport, if you want to convince me you wouldn’t welcome my falling from a horse in the dark.”

“My lord—”

“My sister welcomed it, her husband’s untimely death. I thought I’d welcome Lord Dragonstone’s death too.”

“Stop. That’s a sin.”

He twists towards her, elbow braced upon the mantel, as he crosses one foot over the other.

She’s right of course: it is a sin. Jaime is no stranger to sinning.

“Well, I didn’t welcome it in the end. Peculiar that. Although, I don’t think it’s because I grew a conscience.”

She looks a perfect innocent, sitting there all in white with her back straight and her cheeks flushed. She looks as if she would never dream of committing a sin. And of course, in some regards, she is an innocent. He promised her she might stay that way, though a woman wed.

“I do keep waiting for you to judge me harshly, Lady Lannisport, in all your moral superiority. Is that where we finally stand?”

“No, nor should you judge me or Jon.”

“If you insist,” he says with the sort of flippancy not meant to be believed.

“I’m innocent of what you imagine, but you don’t know what I am truly capable of.”

She’s properly wroth with him. The locket tied about her neck with a blue ribbon catches the fire’s light repeatedly with each heave of her chest. It’s mesmerizing. It’s the hint of a mystery too.

He crosses over the oriental rug to stand before her. Her chin lifts to meet his scrutiny.

“What are you capable of, my dear?” he asks, reaching out to take the locket between his fingers. In spite of his inspection of the ornament, rubbing its gold face between his thumb and forefinger, she boldly holds his gaze. “You can confess it to me.”

Her nostrils thin. “I _have_ wished something would befall someone. Something dreadful. To my benefit.”

His fingers stop their slow rub. He’d tease her about what a tender woman such as herself could possibly imagine counted as truly dreadful, but she looks up at him with such wide-eyed daring that he can’t bring himself to jest.

“You wished someone ill?”

“Yes, and I shall probably burn for it.”

Her throat rolls, as he considers her for a moment. He can see it, a shimmer of fear in her eyes. Not of him but for her immortal soul.

He lowers himself beside her, legs turned in towards hers, as he perches close enough to bump knees. He was going to ask her what or who is tucked inside the shiny locket he still holds fast to, but what does it matter? She is his wife. She is here and his.

“Then I will burn with you, my lady. We shall be together in eternity if you like.”

He runs the locket up the ribbon, towards her ear until his knuckle drags over her neck. She inhales and her lips part.

He grins. At her confession. At the effect he has on her and she on him.

“I'd welcome your company. Though, I don't believe you at all suited to the climate of damnation with this complexion of yours. It's too fine. Too lovely.”

He knows now how he wants to spend his evening. Nothing else will do.

“You are impossible,” she says, the edge in her voice wavering.

He slides the locket back again. Up and around. Back and down into the notch of her neck. He lifts the locket until his finger nudges her chin upwards, leans in, and presses his lips to hers.

Without thought to his arm not being fully his own, he wraps his arm around her back, follows the path of her spine and pulls her closer. Letting the locket slip from his fingers, he cups her cheek, and better versed now in what to expect, her head follows, tipping to the side, as he angles his mouth against her.

She tastes sweet. She tastes of lemon and spiced port, what she must have sipped at supper, alone without him. He strokes her cheek.

The soft noises she makes, as he buries his hand in her hair, pulling loose whatever pins her maid has used to achieve her Grecian style, are as heady as the warmth of her mouth and the nudge of her nose against his own. She’s learned well and he could teach her more. She seems eager enough, hands creeping over his chest and mouth pliant.

Until she's not.

With a toss of her head and a sharp push, she’s free of him. Frowning, he opens his eyes to fix open her wet lips, the source of his pleasure, and then flicks up to her wide-eyed horror. His gaze follows hers, locked upon the library's door. A servant stands there mouth slightly agape caught in shock shared by his mistress.

The young man swivels on his heel to dutifully put his back to them in a show of contrived ignorance of what they were about. But too late. Too late to convince Lady Sansa that she has not been spied in an amorous embrace. The knowledge of it has her strung as tight as a doe. All her curving keenness gone. 

With a sigh of irritation, Jaime braces his arm on the sofa’s seat and crosses his leg at the knee. He’s ready to tell the young man to fetch him some supper just to be rid of him, for they are forever interrupted, but he can't speak quickly enough. Not to salvage the evening, it would seem.

The book long forgotten in her lap hits the floor with a loud thud, as his wife finds her feet. Her narrow shoulders jolt at the sound. His hand—the artificial one—reflexively reaches for her arm to soothe her, but she’s already out of reach, moving over the rug in fluttering flight.

Jaime glares at the servant’s back, as Lady Lannisport disappears behind the door, book left at his feet with the pages splayed wide. “Devil it, man. Find somewhere else to be.”

“Yes, my lord. Pardon me, my lord.”

Jaime growls, looking up at the ceiling, as he rises as well. “Too bloody late.”


	13. The Climax

Lady Lannisport’s mood no doubt has been soured further by their having been discovered. It’s the discovery, rather than interruption that will have ruined things; Jaime at least knows her well enough to expect as much. In light of what has passed both before and after that untimely interruption, he ought to go to bed rather than risk a row. Make a fresh attempt another night should he find himself still fixed on the idea of finding comfort in her arms.

But in his present condition, sleep won’t come. His entire person is much too awake—painfully so.

Jaime doesn’t share her maidenly mortification. He doesn’t give a fig about being happened upon. Certainly not by a servant. Save for the fact that it cut short what ostensibly was heading in the right direction, in spite of his not knowing in the slightest how to handle her or what he was feeling, except to stumble forward and poke until he provoked some reaction. A less than expert tact to be sure.

With hardly any more notion of what to do than he possessed earlier, he takes the steps two at a time, determined to knock at her door to gain entrance and see where that leads. He might as well. For all he’s missing, he still has some powers of friendly persuasion. It seemed as if he did with her breath coming faster and pupils gone fat.

The stairs creak and echo with the tread of his boots, so does the landing, announcing his approach before he ever knocks. Still, he hesitates in the darkened hall, his good hand fisted and ready before the panel of the door. He shifts on his boots, grimaces, and cocks his head.

The door opens, and lest he look foolish, he lowers his hand, which has been deprived of its purpose.

She is still dressed, but then, she can’t have been alone in her room for more than a moment or two. His legs are long and he did not tarry once seized by the urge to pursue her. It has not been long enough to call for her lady’s maid and ready herself for bed. While she is still dressed, her hair is not fit for company. Pulled loose at the back on one side, several thick ringlets hang free at her neck, evidence of his handiwork. Just a little more directed effort on his part and she would look very much like the image he conjured earlier, mussed and rosy cheeked.

He glances down at the hairbrush she holds in her hands. Perhaps she meant to finish the job he’d started without the aid of her maid. Without his further assistance too by the look of her narrow-eyed assessment of him.

“Lady Lannisport. May I come in?” he asks, bowing at the hip with all exaggerated courtesy.

Her lips purse, but if she considers denying him, it can’t be for longer than the slow blink of her eyes. She opens the door wider but says nothing. He doesn’t push for a response, taking her wordless invitation and shouldering through into what was once her sanctuary and what became his as well.

He slept better here with her feminine smell on the pillow and her pale limbs crossing over his in the night. Perhaps his fixation on Sir Jon today has less to do with Sansa and more to do with a lack of sleep.

He strolls over to her dressing table. Sitting beside this table, Sansa has her hair dressed in the morning. Sometimes she takes her breakfast here, entertaining Miss Tyrell, as her maid helps select her gown for the day. Sometimes she writes her letters in the privacy of her room, instead of in a shaft of sunlight in the drawing room, while he lounges on the sofa with an arm slung over his eyes.

More often than not, however, she makes her way downstairs. Seeks company. And it was almost exclusively his company until her family came. He’s jealous of that, no matter how little he likes the feeling. Sleepless nights are not the sole cause of his discomfort.

“Am I disturbing your toilette?” he asks, lifting a small silver topped glass container to examine its contents.

“No, my lord.”

He angles the little pot, trying to catch the light, but to no purpose, for there is none. It is too dark within her room to make out its mysteries. He frowns. It can’t be feminine artifice: she’s too young and fresh-faced for that.

A woman’s world has its intrigues. There’s an allure to it Jaime has felt drawn to since he was a boy.

“I will leave you to it, should you wish to call your maid,” he says, regretting the offer even as he makes it.

He wants her to insist he stay. The very idea of her tenderly asking him not to leave makes him suck in a breath, as he sets the container back in its place on the white linen that drapes the table.

“I can’t. I shouldn’t wish to be sharp with Brella in my current mood.”

“I didn’t think it possible for you to be rude to a servant.”

“Anything is possible. You can be thoughtful and I can be cruel.”

“That certainly doesn’t sound like me,” he says, squinting through the dark at her.

Is she still angry? He’d thought her cured of that, when she let him kiss her.

Where she stands before her closed door, her face is in shadow and as inscrutable as the little delicate feminine items spread atop the table.

“You know, my dear, a candle would have been a good thing to nab before you fled the scene downstairs. It’s as dark as pitch in here.”

Seeing as visions of Lady Lannisport both pleasant and not have plagued him most the afternoon, he would not mind being able to see what it is he’s about should his fair wife allow him in her bed. It isn’t only her mood the darkness obscures. It could veil very pleasing prospects too, which would be a shame.

“You just as easily could have thought to bring one, my lord.”

“Ah, well. No time for that, I’m afraid, for I was chasing after you.”

“Why is that?” she asks, advancing over the rug towards him.

He takes her in from her coppery undone hair to the tip of her slippers in one slow purposeful sweep.

“Why do you think, my dear?”

She clasps her hands before her, one gripping the brush, the other encircling her wrist, and from this close distance, he can see in spite of the dark that her face is still pinched with irritation.

“You have nothing to say?” he asks, extending his hand for the brush. “Are you not flattered?”

“I can't be certain. Did you come here to subject me to further questioning, Lord Lannisport?” she asks, holding out the brush.

Their fingers touch, as he takes it from her. It sends tendrils of sensation up his arm and down his spine that he swallows convulsively against. His fingers stiffen against the mother of pearl handle warmed by her hand.

He has brushed a woman’s hair—Cersei’s—until it shone like spun gold. There’s an art to it, he supposes, like most things. Too much tension applied and it pulls the scalp, too little and one never works through the tangles. Cersei was none too forgiving if her hair was pulled, but if done correctly, there is something about watching the hair glide through the bristles and emerge glossy. To the feel of it moving through your hands.

His hands are not so rough as they were when he was in active service and subject to the elements. There are fewer callouses to catch Sansa’s hair or rough her skin now that he plays the proper gentleman inside his grand house with very little to occupy him other than thoughts of his wife. Or her cousin.

Cersei is a liar. He had thought Sansa’s lies were of a different sort. He wanted her lies to be different, less caustic, so things could be different between them. He’s let himself imagine something better.

“Should I question you further?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t,” he says lightly.

“How forbearing of you.”

He sets the brush down beside the neat row of matching silver items, while also disposing of the notion of asking her to sit for him, so he might finish taking down her hair. It’s too much of a risk.

“It was never part of my duties as an officer to interrogate. I am not so skilled at it. Besides, I had something rather different in mind,” he says, brows knitting as his wife bends at the hip, gathers up her skirts, and begins to yank at the ribbons on her slipper.

Her motions are careless. The whole of her actions unaccountably bold.

“That servant _saw_ us,” she says, pulling her heel free and tossing the slipper towards her dressing chair.

“Yes, well, never mind that.” Given another minute, the young man might have seen more, though it doesn't seem wise to point that out. “We’re secreted safely away now, aren’t we?”

“ _Podrick_ won’t forget. Not anytime soon. And I will have to face him and pretend as if all is well, while feeling—”

Again, she bends, reaching beneath her skirts to do the same to the second slipper. Jaime’s mouth works for a moment, reasoning through what she is about, for her actions and her tone seem at war with each other. It is almost as if she means to disrobe before him, while complaining about his boldness downstairs.

“Absolutely shamefaced,” she finishes, straightening up with her slipper clutched in her hand.

“Other than having regrettable timing, he’s a good lad. I wouldn’t trouble myself with what he thinks of our… moment of indiscretion.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t,” she says, lifting her free hand to the ribbon around her neck that suspends the locket he toyed with in the library.

With one pull, the necklace pools in the palm of her hand and she reaches around him to drop it in a shell shaped dish.

Her behavior, though absurdly contradictory, does nothing to diminish his present source of discomfort. She is as desirable as he never thought to find her, when first they wed. Especially in this fit of pique, her scolding failing to have the desired effect. If she indeed means to put him off, which he can't be certain.

“It may come as a surprise to you, Lady Lannisport, but all the servants assume we do as much behind closed doors. I come to your bed.”

“Not anymore. Not in weeks you haven’t,” she says, tossing her slipper with enough force to bounce off the seat of the chair.

Though it lands soundlessly, he twitches, for her point has landed.

Inwardly he has complained and to Sansa as well, concerning his inability to find himself alone with her, and yet, he has not come to her bed. Not once since her family arrived.

He has been conscious of it, especially alone in his bed and trying for sleep that won’t come. Or when he wakes not knowing where he is and discovers his hand is gone and there is no wife beside him to bring him back to himself. Still, he kept away and did not for a moment consider that here in her room he might have the much sought for privacy. There’s no ready explanation for that choice.

Still, she stands before him awaiting one, and so he searches for a way to wave away the contradiction.

“With your family visiting—”

“What kind of excuse is that? A bad one. Own it,” she demands with a remarkable amount of authority for a young lady standing in her stocking feet with her hair half down.

But her family—Sir Jon to be exact—became in Jaime’s mind a third party in their marriage. Despite having the greater claim, Jaime feared he no longer could compete. Feared what her reaction to his presence would be under these fresh circumstances.

“You wanted to keep away. You decided that.”

“Sansa, that boy is in love with you,” he says, stepping into her.

He reaches for her waist and she pushes his hand away just as quick. He huffs and thrusts it through his hair instead. He feels ready to pull it out at the roots.

“I have shared a table for weeks with a man in love with my wife not knowing how you felt about it, and yet _you_ are angry with _me_ for keeping from your bed. Does that not strike you the least bit ridiculous?”

“You are the lord of this house, are you not?” she asks with a lift of her chin.

“What game is this?”

“Are you not?”

“Yes,” he says, trying again for her waist only to be rebuffed once more.

He could have her prostrate and making those needy noises he likes so well if she wasn’t so insistent on reaffirming the nature of their relationship and chiding him for his absence. More time wasted.

“And I am your wife, am I not?”

He slowly tilts his head, trying to wait out this pointless examination, but she continues to stare back at him. “Yes, Lady Lannisport. I was there at the ceremony. As were you if I recall correctly?”

“You ought to spend more time thinking on that then. Rather than Sir Jon. Keeping away from your wife, from my bed, because you are consumed with jealousy, a petty emotion for a great man—"

“Enough. I’m here to kiss you and more besides. Yes or no?”

“Is that an empty threat, my lord?”

It isn’t. Not tonight.

Once it seemed a conceivable outcome to their embraces, he was still as wary of taking her to bed as desirous of it. Today she has run through his mind for too long, however, to guard himself and deny his wants.

Or hers if her eager little hands pulling his shirt free of his breeches are any indication. Or her feet tripping over his, as they stumble back towards her bed. Until her head meets the pillow and he can gather her skirts up and shoulder off his coat, while her hands make quick work of his cravat. Which is a good thing, for he’s breathing so hard, he might expire were she not to tug it from his collar and set to work on liberating him from his waistcoat too. With her questing hands pressed between their bodies, he knees her soft white thighs apart, finally approaching the critical point without any objection on her part. All in spite of or because of her odd mood.

“You might be angry with me after if you like,” he says against her ear.

“I shall be,” she vows, though her words hitch as his hand moves over her.

He has to do very little to draw out evidence of her arousal. That's more a balm to his ego than any verbal reassurance.

Jaime believes there are precisely two times when a man truly feels what it is to be alive. Between those times is a protracted forgetting. It falls over a person gradually, only to be remedied by another sharp reminder—like this with his cock in hand and pressing into her. The other is on the battlefield surrounded by death and the prospect of one’s own. Two seemingly incongruous affairs, which inexplicably bring him to an overwhelming place of feeling and driving need.

Neither of which he has experienced in some time. Of the two, he’s more recently faced down his mortality. While he is no untested youth, he’s never taken a wife to bed nor a virgin. An occasional woman of easy virtue, an even more occasional bored widow, but never someone he might care for. Never someone he’d vowed to protect or cherish. In his youth, he never entertained such tediously bourgeois aspirations. Moreover, an unschooled woman in his bed seemed a tiresome prospect. Experience was best in these situations.

Faced with a wife, who he increasingly wanted to introduce to such pleasures, it struck him that he might not be fit for it. Might not have it in him to be as careful or gentle as duty required. But as it turns out, wanting to protect her—the fierce feeling that makes him desperate and savage all at once—is not so different from what he feels slipping inside her with her mouth tipped up to his and his good hand buried in her thick hair.

Jaime has never much indulged in delayed gratification, and this has been a long game. The feeling is exquisite, everything he remembers and more. For she is not only soft and warm, but she is also his and clings to him with an urgency that is not feigned or practiced. Surely. Surely this is real.

He would drive into her to feel more and now, but caging her with his arms, the violent need to shelter her is greater.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She nods, lips brushing his. Though she knows little what to expect, she trusts him. He can sense it. It’s harder than he imagined to deserve her trust with her hands fluttering at his sides and dipping lower and her thigh rubbing against his hip, as he hikes her leg up higher to ease the angle.

His hand follows the bend of her waist, skates over her bosom, distressingly covered by her gown, but he kisses her there anyway, over the fabric, until her back arches beneath him and her fingers scratch through his shirt. It almost unmans him. The scent of her—perfume and perspiration and the powder dabbed on her skin by her maid. The warm wet pull of her body. The breathy sound of his name on her lips mouthed against his neck, while he moves inside her.

 _Jaime_.

“Sweet girl,” he calls her. “My sweet girl,” he says, as her body twists, seeking something that he can give her.

And then there’s no reason to hold back, as her hands grapple for purchase along his back and her head arches up. He follows after her with his blood pounding in his head and the world narrowing in until its nothing but a knot in his gut that screws his eyes shut tight.

He’s only half-aware of her hand cupping his cheek, her thumb arcing over his face, as he pulses inside her until he’s wrung out, strings cut, and he heaves a sigh. Collapsing only partly atop her, for fear of crushing her, he pants into the pillow. It takes him some time to come back to himself and for his breath to come easy. Some time before he’s willing to disengage from her too. He drags his hand up to caress her neck and spanning her jaw with his thumb and forefinger, urges her to look his way.

“All right?” he asks, as she brushes at her temple with the back of her hand, pushing away damp stray hairs.

There will be no one to blame but himself if she’s not.

Something unclenches in his chest, when she hums her response and let’s her eyes slip closed.

“Can I get you something?”

She shakes her head no, and he gives a lopsided smile at her drowsy contentment.

He pushes up in the bedclothes and throws his legs over the side of the bed. He’s certainly not leaving her, but he can’t spend the night with his breeches bunched around his hips.

With his back to her, he feels the mattress shift as she rolls and then a hand trail down his back, as he works the buckskin down his legs. He should have removed them entirely. The exertion has made them stick.

“I told Jon I was safe with you.”

Jaime grimaces and heaves a noisy sigh. “Are we back to that?”

And so soon after?

Her finger follows the bumps of his spine, as he struggles with a stocking. “That’s how the farewells went, since you asked. I told him not to fret over me so as to put his mind at ease.”

He fights the urge to shrug off her touch, as she speaks of her cousin, when only a moment earlier he wanted forever to be sheathed inside her.

“I _am_ safe with you,” she adds in so plaintive a tone, however, that he flops back into the bed beside her.

His head lolls on the pillow to take her profile in—the slope of her nose, the rise of her cheeks, her cupid’s bow. There’s a good deal to admire in her face, in her figure, in the content of her character. He doesn’t deserve her.

Sullen Sir Jon would not provoke her for sport or when his ego felt pricked. Nor does he have a miserable family to harass her.

“You imagine your cousin was consumed with worry, do you? Not a passion?”

“No,” she says biting the lip now reddened from their kissing, “no, he fancied himself in love with me. But he’ll get over that, and in the meantime, I wouldn’t have him thinking me miserable.”

“So, you were _not_ ignorant of his feelings for you.”

She played so innocent. Not only before him but with Sir Jon as well, refusing to acknowledge her cousin’s affections. Jaime was witness to it in the garden.

“Women do not have the luxury of being ignorant of men’s wants, as you are so often ignorant of ours.”

He frowns, seeing that phantom unhappiness flit behind her blue eyes, but as quick as he spies it, she’s stroking his arm and assuring him again, “I’m quite all right. I only don’t like to feel lonely. You won’t stay away, will you?”

“No,” Jaime says, already wondering how he ever managed to keep away or how he will wait patiently for a further invitation.

She scoots in closer, until her gown brushes his still heated flesh. He’ll have to assist her in undressing. Not an unpleasant prospect given what he will reveal.

“He’d never confess it, you know. There was no danger of a confession. Jon’s not like that.”

“Honorable Sir Jon,” Jaime says, turning his head to stare up at the pleats in the bed’s canopy. “You pretended not to know. Quite convincingly.”

The tip of her nose nudges at his shoulder and then her lips mark a path over the muslin of his shirt. “Sometimes pretending is for the best.”

That’s what worries him.

He wraps his arm around her narrow shoulders, pulling her in to kiss the crown of her head. Going willingly, she pillows her cheek on his chest and slips her hand inside the opening in his shirt. Her fingers are cool against his skin.

“Are you still very angry with me, my dear, as promised?” he ventures to ask only because she hangs on him so that he can’t imagine her answering in the affirmative.

Should she still hold onto her anger, he only will have good reason to attempt to soothe it once more.

She hums as if considering before finally rubbing her chin over his chest. “No.”

“Pray, what has improved your mood?”

She gives his chest a playful pinch that makes him grin into her hair.

“No, I can’t fathom. Enlighten me,” he presses.

“I'm not angry, because... this was nice, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, very _pleasant_ , my lady.”

She buries her face in his rumpled shirt. “You’re teasing me.”

“Never. Although, we might try to improve upon nice. With a little practice, perhaps.”

She lifts her eyes to him and looks incomprehensibly coquettish, totally out of line with what he expects from her. “I'll have you know, I’m very diligent in my practicing.”

His grin grows larger. “Practice makes perfect.”


	14. The Specter

Tiresome business took Jaime to London. Things required of him as the heir to his father’s title and estate. He was away for the better part of a week, in which he thought distractedly of his wife’s embrace and her gentle attentions. Indeed, it was an almost worrisome amount of time devoted to contemplating her, for without a letter from her to assure him he was not alone in his distraction, he feared he might have been the only one suffering. Therefore, he looked forward not only to his return home, but also her sweet assurances of the loneliness she felt in his absence.

When he arrived at Lannisport House in the early evening hours, however, the insufferable little sister informed him that his wife had already taken to her bed. It being unusually early, he questioned Miss Stark on Lady Lannisport’s condition. All he got out of her for his trouble was a vague assertion that his wife was not feeling well.

In a moment of great restraint, despite having been away for what felt like too long, he did not disturb her rest, sleeping instead in his own bed. It was considerate of him, which his wife claims he can be on occasion. It also showed some semblance of self-control, proving at least to himself that he had not completely lost his head, when it came to Lady Lannisport.

He rose this morning thinking he would greet her in the drawing room. She would be pleased to see him and he could bask in that sweetness. However, with the meal now nearly over, she has not come down to break her fast. In a mockery of his expectations, he has been forced instead to watch her sister inelegantly stuff her face with honey cakes and hot chocolate that she keeps refilling from the enamel and glazed porcelain chocolate pot.

Jaime looks to Lady Lannisport’s empty chair, her plate untouched, the silverware perfectly positioned alongside. Were she with them, she would sit straight backed, her hair coppery in the morning light coming through the eastern windows, asking for the details of his trip. When he is the focus of her warm interest, he feels completed in a way he has not since the loss of his career, his hand, or the love of his sister. The disappointment he feels at his wife's failure to appear is something akin to an ache.

The delay of her arrival at the table must have some cause, for she does not sleep the day away. It is a reason which he wouldn't mind knowing. If he is to keep company with Miss Stark, she might at least share whatever information she is privy to about her sister.

He taps the toe of his boot beneath the table, but she fails to take the hint and look up.

“Is Lady Lannisport entertaining company while she dresses?” he asks, watching over his teacup with something between disdain and awe as the girl reaches for yet another cake. Where does she put it? She has not yet attained the height of her sister, and yet, she eats like a boy of as many years. Perhaps all the scampering about the countryside requires endless sustenance. “Miss Tyrell, perhaps?”

Miss Tyrell is less of a fixture in the house since Sansa's family has come to visit, but in the past, when Jaime had reason to absent himself, Miss Tyrell was much relied upon.

“I wouldn’t know. Ring the bell and ask for yourself,” Miss Stark says, without bothering to swallow.

While the bell is within easy reach, he ignores the urge to seize it. Jaime would hate to follow any recommendation of his sister-in-law’s. Especially with her sitting there looking like the cat that ate the canary. He’s not sure what she’s so puffed up about, but whatever it is, he won’t give her the satisfaction of so much as looking at the bell. Instead, he affects a careless aspect, slouching in his chair and stretching out his leg, as he sets his teacup back in its dish.

He will wait out her ravenous bout of eating as if he has nothing better to do. Though he does wish she’d hurry. He spares a quick look to his wife’s empty chair once more. He feels unsettled, a nervous kind of anticipation making his limbs restless, not having yet laid eyes on Lady Lannisport.

Miss Stark laughs. He arches a brow at her, watching her snatch up yet another cake before pushing back from the small table they share.

“Leaving so soon, Miss Stark?”

If so, he'll count it a blessing and won’t bother to give another thought to her impenetrable behavior.

“Yes, you are even more abysmal company than usual.”

“Is that so? Shame. I thought we might have a proper heart to heart this morning.”

“You're not capable of proper conversation, wanting only to call for Sansa. It’s tiresome.” She tilts her head, contemplating what remains of the honey drizzled tower of cakes still left on the platter, and grabs one more for good measure. “No, I shall leave you. Then you might not be ashamed of your wanting a full report on the whereabouts of your wife, my lord,” she says cheerfully.

She bobs a courtesy, while biting into one of her two pilfered honey cakes.

“Do as you like. Only attempt not to steal from any of my neighbors’ today as liberally as you’ve thieved from the table this morning. You might be mistaken for a vagrant with your hair unbrushed.”

She looks up, blowing air through a wayward strand of hair that has not been curled in the current style. “I don’t give a fig about my hair.”

“Evidently. I only warn you, for I have a great deal to attend to, and on account, might find it difficult to extricate you from the law’s hands.”

“The warning is much appreciated, I'm sure,” she says around too big a bite.

“It occurs to me, Miss Stark, a bird might mistake it for a nest. Best grab your bonnet. I shan’t be able to save you from ravens either.”

With a snort, she noisily puts her chair crookedly back in place. “If Sansa told you to, you would.”

She flounces off, the immaturity of her exit only partially spoiling the delivery of the assertion meant to make him feel less grand.

What if he is fond of his wife? Who would not find her charming? She is the sort of wife men wish for and she is his. He would be a great fool if after everything he still could not find any pleasure in having her be the lady of his house. Moreover, it has been their longest separation, since they were wed, so there is nothing shameful about his wanting to know where she is and when she might join him.

That his anticipation outstrips his wife’s, however, is a distinct possibility, given her delay. An unpleasant possibility.

Unless, of course, she has not been apprised of his arrival. She ought to have been, for she is the mistress of the house and nothing should pass within it its walls without her being made aware.

Waiting until he hears silence from the hall and the mantel clock chimes, Jaime reaches for the bell. For good measure, he counts in his head to ten—without rushing—and then gives the bell a sharp ring.

Podrick answers, the same servant who came upon them, when Jaime’s hand was buried in Lady Lannisport’s hair and his mouth hotly pressed to hers. Jaime was rather irritated at the time, but it is hard to hold the young man’s poor timing against him, when the night ended in Jaime’s favor. Indeed, his interruption might have been just the thing that drove them to the critical point. Perhaps he ought to give the lad an extra day off, next it occurs to Jaime.

Hopefully he can prove helpful this morning too, Jaime thinks, straightening up in the chair to address him. “Tell me, has something been brought to Lady Lannisport’s room this morning?”

Podrick's head bobs. “Yes, I believe it was attempted, my lord.”

It’s an odd affirmation, so Jaime tries for a better confirmation. “She takes her refreshment above stairs then?”

Now the lad’s head shakes as surely as it bobbed a moment earlier. “I don’t believe so, my lord.”

“She either does or doesn’t. Which is it?”

“Lady Lannisport’s maid had her morning tray sent away, my lord. Or so I was told. I was not the one who cleared it.”

Jaime pushes his teacup and saucer farther away from him with an unfurling of his middle finger. “Something wrong with it?”

Even if there was something wholly unacceptable with what was brought to her, Jaime can’t quite imagine his wife sending away anything presented to her. She is more likely to sit, smiling as she eats, in spite of it being distasteful.

“I believe Lady Lannisport was not well enough to eat what was sent, my lord.”

While Arya said she was not feeling well last night, he had not anticipated that whatever it was would last until the morrow.

“Not well enough?” Jaime throws down his napkin. “Why did you not lead with that?” he asks, pushing back his chair.

“Apologies, my lord,” Podrick says, tucking his hands behind his back.

“What is the complaint?”

“I don’t know, my lord.”

Jaime raises his false hand to drag it through his hair, but it is worthless at such a simple task, and he lets it fall back to his side. “She could not eat? Would not eat? What was it?”

“Could not, I believe.”

“Is something more palatable being prepared? Something Lady Lannisport might tolerate better?”

“Yes, my lord. Cook is having something sent. I shall bring it myself. Directly,” his head bobs again, eager to please.

“When it comes to Lady Lannisport, if she is unwell, I shall be made aware of it. Immediately. Understood? You tell Brella or Wat I said as much, whatever chain of command will not upset everyone below stairs. Yes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Jaime takes no more than three steps towards the door, when he spins on his heel to say one last thing to Podrick. “And have Brella sent to me upstairs if she is the one fully informed on the welfare of Lady Lannisport.”

Someone will assist him in getting to the bottom of what is amiss with his wife, and then they will set her rights. Brella, the cook, Wat, he doesn't care who, so long as it is done.

It is a pointless command, however, for when Jaime reaches the top of the stairs, having made the climb in great two-step strides, Sansa’s lady’s maid stands in the hall, closing his wife’s door, softly, as if not to disturb.

His boot thumps against the last step and she jumps.

“Monsieur.”

She drops a curtsy more elegant than her yelped acknowledgement of him.

“Lady Lannisport is unwell?”

“Oui. She is not herself.”

Jaime stalks closer. “And no one thought to inform me? In my own house?”

“I sent for broth, monsieur. Bone broth cures all manner maladie.”

“While I’m sure you achieved a stellar education in medicine at university, I would prefer in the future to be notified if my wife is ailing.”

“Oui, monsieur. Pardon,” she says blandly, though Jaime stands scowling before her.

Her lack of concern does not bode well for her future here.

Given that his wife is not given to complaint, having gone to bed early and not come down for breakfast, he expects Lady Lannisport to be well and truly sick, when he shoulders past her disappointing lady’s maid. Sick, but not too sick. Some trifling cold perhaps that has made it too unpleasant to swallow much beyond broth. Or a gripe that has made eating impossible. He expects her color might not be what it ought to be, and if Brella has acquitted herself at all respectably, that she be propped in the bed, surrounded by pillows, ready to croak out a welcome home and squeeze his hand to show how she missed him.

What he senses, crossing before her bed to grip the bedpost, is something else altogether. And yet, she is sleeping soundly. Perhaps that is the best medicine. That and the much awaited bloody bone broth. Though her being soundly asleep does rob him of speaking to her for yet a while longer.

He can wait a bit longer.

He fixes Brella with a look, as she creeps in behind him. Her reluctance is evident, holding back from her lady’s bed with one hand hovering before her face.

She might be unwilling to approach, but he draws him closer to his wife's side. Unease steals up his spine at signs of illness more troubling than he imagined. Perspiration beads on her brow, which is lined as if in pain. Her lips are pale too, drained of all their usual rosy color—the color that blurs, when he kisses her for great stretches of the evening, hands framing her face, thumb directing the angle of her delicate face. Even the bedding is twisted about her legs, as if she has spent the night tossing.

She doesn’t fuss now. She gives no indication that she is aware of him, still as death.

He blinks, looking down at her, trying to clear the image of another body lying in a bed, one whom was so very dear to him.

They shuffled him in as a boy to say goodbye to his mother, laid out in the bed in which she died, bringing his brother into this world. Dead for some time, when someone other than his distraught father thought to bring Jaime and Cersei in, she looked waxen and pale and wrung out as if from monumental effort. Smaller than he had ever thought her to look before that moment.

His heart clenches.

“Lady Lannisport,” he says sternly, as if she might rouse if he is firm enough. Then, “My lady,” more gently for good measure, for indeed, the softer touch is often the wiser course with his wife. “My dear.”

He grasps her hand, lifting it from the bed linens, where it lies palm up and fingers curling in. She gives no response. Not from his repeated voicing of her name, not from his squeezing of her hand. She doesn't stir.

Placing her hand with great care atop her uncovered middle, he turns from the bed to address Brella only to find she has fled the room.

Fury at her abandonment merges with the fear he feels stiffening his muscles. He could roar with it, the hot fury he feels at Brella's lack of courage, the failure of anyone to tell him of Lady Lannisport's desperate state, and the ugly vision taking root in his mind.

He stalks back to the door, bracing the frame with his good and false hand, and leaning out, he bellows into the hallway. If Brella has gotten far, she will still hear him and know she's made a mistake in going.

Would a good English maid have left her mistress in such a state? Jaime knows well enough that across the Channel they are happy to submit their lords and ladies to the guillotine. Perhaps a true French lady’s maid, however much status having one confers, was not well-considered.

The frog’s head pops above the banister on his third shout. “Monsieur?”

Another head shows just below the first. Podrick's arms are burdened with a tray that no doubt bears the bone broth requested some time earlier. The boy truly did fetch it directly. At least one of the servants is reliable.

“You were not dismissed. I have need of you. Lady Lannisport has need of you,” he says to Brella and then to Podrick he adds, “stay outside this door. I may have need of you as well.”

Her lady’s maid gingerly takes one step and then another.

Jaime leans harder into the doorway. “Step quickly.”

The boy’s eyes go wide, either unnerved by the urgency in his master’s voice or the idea of his possibly being needed. Whatever the case, he follows direction, hurrying up the staircase quickly enough that he outpaces the maid and reaches Jaime before her.

Perhaps it isn't Jaime's tone or the threat of being asked to rise to the occasion. Most of them are fond of her: Jaime is not alone in that. She has such a gentle touch with the servants, such gracious manners paired with an undemanding nature. Podrick might feel exactly what Brella ought and does not at the prospect of Lady Lannisport being gravely ill.

Brella ought to have been grateful to have such a mistress. Cersei is very different sort of mistress, and when Lord Baratheon died, were Jaime not married, she might have come. Sansa's lady's maid doesn't know the fate she narrowly escaped, but she ought to be thankful all the same.

“Inside,” he says, as Brella squeezes past him with a duck of her head under his outstretched arm.

She stops short of actually assisting, however, lingering at the end of the bed, as he follows behind her.

“You left her this morning in this state?”

“I believed the broth would bring her round, monsieur.”

“It better work miracles if it meant you needed to abandon her alone insensible.”

Brella gestures towards his wife. “She was tired. I let her rest.”

He growls, moving around the bed to his wife’s side. “Not good enough.”

He edges onto the mattress, careful not to disturb her. He brings his hand to her brow. As he feared, she burns with fever. Clenching his jaw, he presses the back of his hand to her clammy cheek.

Still she gives no sign of waking.

“My lady,” he says softly.

It feels as if his throat is closing, as he tucks away a strand of hair that has stuck to her brow.

A voice scratches at the back of his brain, whispering. _There is always more to lose_.

He feels the maid’s gaze upon him and glares over his nose at her. With her looking on, as he unravels inwardly at signs of Lady Lannisport’s fragility, he suddenly resents the maid’s presence as much as he took exception to her forsaking his wife.

“What shall I do?” the woman asks, proving she might be useless in all but the arranging of hair.

He glares over his nose at the maid. It would be convenient to blame her.

“Were the windows left open last night?”

“No, monsieur. I know night air is very bad.”

“Has she been roused at all this morning?”

“I did try, monsieur, but she is very tired.”

“Is this what you call tired?” he says, looking down on his wife. He brushes back her hair, a shade darker than usual from dampness. “How long has she been like this?”

“She was weak last night.” The maid's hands fidget with the edge of her apron. “Too weak to sit for her hair. She dismissed me. When I come this morning, she is as you see.”

“Next time Lady Lannisport is unwell, even with the most trifling cold, you will tell me directly or you will find yourself sleeping in the hedge.”

Brella pouts. “Women have complaints, monsieur, of which no man need be informed.”

“I said without delay. Understood?” he demands.

Her pout turns into a sour pinch. “Oui.”

Jaime shakes his head. “Stay with her. Can you manage that?”

“Oui,” she says, though alarm sharpens her features, as he slides from the bed. “Are you leaving, monsieur?”

If he had known how poorly Sansa truly was, he would be gone already, riding for Dr. Theomore directly from the breakfast table.

“Yes.”

“Will you be long?”

“I hope not,” he says, straightening his coat as he makes for the door. “Time is of the essence.”

Something she failed to grasp.

Podrick, in contrast to Brella's failings, waits dutifully outside the door. His presence causes Jaime to pull up short, as he takes one long stride through Lady Lannisport’s doorway.

Pointing back into the room, Jaime says, “Don’t let that woman leave Lady Lannisport in there alone again.”

“Yes, my lord,” Podrick says with a nod.

“She's not to be alone a moment while I'm gone. I’ll ride for Dr. Theomore, drag him back here by the scruff of his neck if need be.”

He’ll come. His profession demands it, however much Jaime has neglected the connection. For Dr. Theomore is not only the neighborhood physician, who should be welcome in their home as a gentleman, but he also is a distant relation. The doctor’s mother, Jaime believes, having been a Lannister.

Podrick looks down at the tray still held in his hands. “May I go for you, my lord? I can hurry.”

He’s a good lad. Jaime could send him or another footmen or a groom. With someone else on their way to fetch Dr. Theomore, Jaime could sit bedside, freed from relying on the dubious lady’s maid’s services.

The offer is well-intentioned, but it doesn’t tempt him. Jaime has faith in his own ability to ride faster.

Horror inspires action. As a man, he can stand almost anything, including this new, unexpected threat to his serenity. But there are only so many ways to cope. Sitting by is not a method Jaime feels comfortable pursuing. He must slay this challenge directly.

He will go for Dr. Theomore, demand the best care for his wife, and see to it that she is put right again.

“No, you take that tray in. Perhaps she will wake, and it will do her some good.”

Podrick nods again, already turning to carry out Jaime’s order.

Not five minutes since Jaime first saw Sansa's altered face and his skin crawls with the need to do something. If he does not, he shall go mad, driven to distraction by the vision of his dead mother traded for the fair face of his wife.

Down the stairs, the one-two pattern of his quick descent matches the thump-thump of his speeding heart, as he pictures Sansa’s fair skin turning a shade of grey. He stops only to grab his hat and crop. The coat he wears, though not cut for riding, will have to do. His destination is the stable, where there ought to be a horse ready to ride at short notice. A carriage would take longer to ready and Dr. Theomore has a phaeton that can bring him to Lannisport House.

Striding through the arched door of the wash yard, Jaime paces left and then right, looking for a groom he might bark at to get a horse saddled. None appear handy and he beats his hat against his thigh in frustration. A whole estate crawling with servants, and yet, when he needs one, there are none to be found.

“Hello there?” he calls out, hoping to draw someone out.

There is a stirring off to his left, the crunch of feet on straw, where the hunters are stabled. Someone tucked away in the wooden loose box stall intended for mares and their foals. It is Miss Arya’s gaze that fixes on him, peeking just above the stall's wall. Her eyes dart away before she ducks down, disappearing like a poor man's conjurer.

“Miss Stark?” His boot heels echo against the cobbled floor. “Miss Stark. I don’t have time for this. Show yourself.”

Her face reappears, instead of looking ashamed at her odd behavior, she greets him with a perfectly composed face, as if she was not just attempting to avoid detection by hiding behind a wall.

Jaime swears when Sansa is well again, he will insist that neither of them ever entertain family again.

“Go inside the house. Immediately.”

The bridge of her nose wrinkles. “Why?”

“Your sister is ill,” he says, pointing towards the house with his crop.

The end of it shivers and he lowers it. He has no remaining patience and a thinning control over a body flooded with terror.

“Yes, and?”

He grits his teeth hard enough to send a spike of pain through his temple. “A great deal sicker than you indicated this morning, and her maid is worthless, I fear. Which is why you will sit with her.”

His hunters are stabled in the adjacent stalls and they snuffle, looking over their stalls to see what the commotion is.

The noise pulls her attention, and she asks “And what of you?” while looking over at the animals with arched interest. “Why can you not play nursemaid?”

“I’m leaving presently if a groom would show himself,” he says, turning to give the yard another look.

But he needn’t seek a groom in some remote corner or in the hay loft above. A rustle betrays someone close at hand. Emerging from behind a thick post, the groom—the one he found Miss Stark with some weeks previous—reveals himself.

The shock of it stops Jaime for a moment. He looks the boy up and down. Tall and exceptionally broad-chested for his age, he’s built like a bloody ox.

“My lord.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, my lord.”

He reminds Jaime of someone; who he can’t quite say. Jaime believes his father had the boy sent here, when the young man before him was some degree younger.

He’s a handsome enough lad, but Miss Stark has no business being here with him. Not ever, but especially with her sister in danger.

“That's a problem isn't it? For you are not employed to idle,” Jaime says, as he turns his attention on Miss Stark. “And you. While your sister lies abed, you are consorting with a groom.”

She wraps her hand around the top edge of the stall, uneven from some eager cribber that once made a bed here. “I am friends with whomever I like.”

“Yes, you have amply proven your questionable judgment on that point. You,” he directs at the lad, who stares back at him from behind a great hank of black hair that partially obscures his eyes. “Saddle my horse.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Quickly,” he says, as both he and Miss Stark watch the groom slide out of the stall and turn for the harness room, head canted down.

Jaime turns his disapproving scowl on his sister-in-law. “This is where you choose to be? With your sister ill?”

“Sansa is the sort of patient that gives no trouble. She doesn’t have need of me.”

He takes a step into the stall wall, bringing himself closer to her, as he breathes deeply through his nose. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m not ashamed of anything. You’re the fraud,” she says, raising up on her toes to gain some in height, as he towers over her. “A sham of a person.”

“Do tell, Miss Stark. Count my failings, while your friend goes about his duties.”

“Why ride for a doctor yourself if she is so very ill?”

“You doubt it?” He sees his wife there on the backs of his eyelids as he lets his eyes drift closed. Pale and clammy. Weak with fever. With his heart still pumping, his voice begins to rise. “I could not rouse her. She burns with fever.”

There it is again, the image of his mother, dead with her hands carefully arranged on her body and her hair brushed back but still damp. He squeezes the brim of his hat hard enough to crush it.

“Lord Lannister, my lord.”

Jaime swivels towards the groom, who stands holding Jaime’s saddle before him with a bridle thrown over his thick arm.

“I’ll have to ask you not to raise your voice to the lady.”

Jaime’s shoulders shake in a silent laugh. “You’ve found yourself a hero, Miss Stark?”

“I don’t need one,” she says, giving the boy an ugly look, which he ought to feel properly hurt by, considering he's stuck his neck out on her behalf.

“You could use a share of gratitude, Miss Stark. Especially when it comes to your sister, who wanted nothing more than for you to come here. It was her fondest wish. This is how you pay her back.”

“It does my sister no harm, my being here with Gendry.”

“You know that to be false or you’re a great simpleton. Your behavior might very well spell her ruin.”

The groom attempts to interrupt with a “Miss Stark,” but she barrels on without a sparing her unarmored white knight a glance.

“And Sansa is a great deal stronger than you would ever give her credit for. You only like how she makes you feel about yourself, and now her being ill affords you the chance to pretend to be the hero. If you really were a hero, you wouldn’t have come and taken her away from her home. You wouldn’t have brought her here in the first place, into your miserable family, when you didn't care for her at all. She might have had someone better for a husband if you’d let her alone.”

“Your cousin, I presume?”

“Jon's three times the man you are.”

“Enough,” Jaime says under his breath.

But she doesn't heed him, she presses on, rising up yet farther on her toes, fingers going white around the ragged stable wall. “If you cared for her and not just for yourself, you’d already have sent someone else. It suits you, doesn’t it, riding off in a temper to save the life of your wife? Send Gendry. Send anyone else.”

“I’ll go, my lord,” the boy says, as he hefts the saddle onto the back of Jaime’s fastest mount.

“Stay out of this,” Jaime barks back.

“Yes, don't interfere. Your master wants to congratulate himself later on how he saved the day, whilst everyone else was useless.” She drops several inches, going flat-footed before stomping from the loose box stall with a toss of her head. From the edge of the wash yard, she shouts back, “Isn’t that so, _my lord_?”


	15. The Weight

The library door swings wide. The unexpected creak alerts Jaime to someone’s entry, and he lifts his head from the table, though it takes some effort, feeling four stones heavy at the least. He squints through the darkness—he’s allowed no servant to light a candle to illuminate the room—to spy who it is that dare disturb him.

It is Miss Stark. He has not yet seen her today, though the day is near its end, but it makes no matter, she looks the same as she did the day before: hair pulled back severely in a bun and wearing the same gown, the ugly yellow one with no lace or flowers to break up the unbecoming hue. She might have slept in it. She very rarely leaves her sister’s bedside, draped over the edge of the bed, her perch a wooden chair pulled into the room for the purpose of this grim death watch that has consumed his house.

He doesn’t bother to stand upon her entry. Manners are wasted upon his courteous wife’s little sister.

“Dr. Theomore is with her again,” she says, as if to explain her appearance here. “He says I ask too many questions.”

That is a more accurate explanation of her unwanted presence. She does ask too many questions. She’s nosy and pushy, and for now, that serves his purposes, for she pesters Dr. Theomore, saving Jaime from having to do so, when all he wants to do is slowly drown in his thoughts.

Jaime’s head swings towards the window. It’s too dark to make out anything beyond the tree planted closest, which has lost its leaves and looks like a herald of death, eager bony fingers reaching towards the panes of glass.

He doesn’t know what time it is, having paid no attention to the chiming of the mantel clock, but he did send away the last tray that was brought to him. Judging by the light, it must have been supper.

He counts on the fingers of his left hand. “Is that twice or thrice today that he’s come?”

“Twice. Earlier and just now.”

He frowns down at his forefinger and middle splayed wide. “Only twice?”

She makes a disagreeable humming sound that borders on a growl. “Three times yesterday.”

Which is as he thought. Every day less.

“He should come more often.”

Shall he only come the once tomorrow, counting upon Lady Lannisport’s imminent demise?

The first few days, Dr. Theomore did not leave Lannisport House. Having been put up in a guest room, he was ever close at hand, dedicated and concerned. That he left could have been taken as a welcome development, Sansa needing less careful minding, but Dr. Theomore only said that there was nothing else to be done for the time being and he had responsibilities elsewhere.

Jaime hated him the moment he said it, and his loathing of the man grows every time he hears the wheels of his phaeton churning the lane, as he pulls away.

“He said this morning Sansa was some improved, a lessening of the fever.”

“Did he?” Jaime asks blandly, though there is a painful surge of hopefulness that slices through his chest at her words.

He forces it down.

Day and night, he’s sat here, refusing to retire to his own bed and fearing a visit to Lady Lannisport’s. Held somewhere in between complete despair and nothingness, he is useless and without function. He’d lost who he was before Sansa was forced upon him as a bride, and if he should lose her, he will once again be without purpose, made worse by her acceptance of his being incomplete, the crutch that her tenderness became in too short a time.

“That is why he waited to return.” Miss Stark’s eyes flick heavenward. “Or so he claims.”

“Does she seem better to you?” he asks without meeting Miss Stark’s eye, so as not to betray too much.

“Perhaps,” she flippantly responds, equally concealing whatever she feels at some hopeful sign of her sister’s returning health.

It is a poor cover. Miss Stark did not initially take her sister’s condition seriously, but she has not wavered in her attention to Sansa since it was made plain how serious it was.

“Well, I’ll speak with him on him absence. This lack of attention and care to Lady Lannisport. He is all head and no heart.”

If Dr. Theomore even bothers to inform him on Lady Lannisport’s condition tonight before he flees. He doesn’t always brave the lion's den now that many days have passed and so little change is apparent. Jaime’s temper might also have something to do with the man’s reluctance.

There was no such foot-dragging at the outset. Jaime was subjected to a grand style interrogation upon the completion of Dr. Theomore’s first examination of the patient. It was painfully accusatory. Dr. Theomore does not mince words, no matter with whom it is he is dealing.

Did she sleep with the windows open? Or go to sleep with hair still damp? Walk in the night air? Eat some uncooked fruit or vegetable? Eat food prepared too hot? Or too cold? Were her stockings allowed to get wet? On and on, he questioned Jaime, who sat with his head in his hands, shaking his head no after every question. Nothing was done which might risk her health, he assured the physician, although, not having been here, Jaime doesn’t actually know if that is true.

He vowed to protect her from unkindness of any kind, when he ought to have nailed shut the windows and seen to the careful inspection of her food.

On the basis of any of these ill-considered actions, a diagnosis, the humors might be unbalanced, was delivered. The cure, a bleeding necessary to restore balance, administered.

Jaime absented himself from the patient’s room, not wishing to see his wife’s vein opened. Blood on the battlefield is one thing, but blood flowing from Lady Lannisport’s pale flesh was something else. Even thinking on it stirs dark thoughts.

Though the doctor has not bled her again, Jaime has absented himself more often than not, knowing only that the cure failed to achieve the speedy improvement for which Dr. Theomore had hoped. If possible, she’s paler now than before, and Jaime is plagued by images of his mother that fade into Sansa’s form. They keep him awake, hunched over this table or staring out at the dark lawn, as he grips the sash.

Worse than damp stockings or uncooked fruit, Dr. Theomore hinted strongly the reason for the failure of the cure might owe to the cause of her illness being something different than he initially suspected. Was the lady given to melancholy? If Lady Lannisport have allowed herself to become too emotional, indulged in some sadness or disappointment she did not attempt to moderate as she ought to have done if she cared for her health, it would explain the gravity of the case.

It was this last suggestion that sent Dr. Theomore hurrying from the room, when Jaime roared oaths at him.

Sansa is not to blame for her sickness.

For if she is, the only cause for sadness Jaime can settle upon is Sir Jon’s recent departure.

That cannot possibly be the cause. Sir Jon is not so important to her. To her health and happiness.

Not when she has become so hopelessly vital to Jaime’s own serenity, his sense of self, his everything.

Miss Stark twists, looking back towards the library door. “I don’t trust him.”

The avowal doesn’t shock him: Miss Stark’s paranoia approaches his own, since this all began over a week ago.

His suspicion extends to the whole household, all of whom he considers suspect. Not only due to their appalling negligence early in Lady Lannisport’s illness, but also because one among them must have spread news of her condition abroad. It reached his sister. A fact of which he was made aware upon receipt of a letter from Cersei, expressing regret that he might so soon follow her into widowerhood.

He suspects it wasn’t the long reach of gossip that brought the news to her door, which so clearly brought her delight, but a direct informant—a spy within his own household. Someone she pays to inform on Lady Lannisport, on Jaime, on them both.

Intolerable. As soon as he thought it, he began to rid the house of infection.

He sacked Brella first. After that it was a footman and one of the cooks. He might yet send more packing. They all look as if they fear it too, scuttling past him and in and out of the room with eyes averted.

 _Good_.

“What do you find lacking in the good doctor, Miss Stark?”

It will be difficult, finding another physician, but if Miss Stark’s concerns are legitimate, he’ll send to London for one or farther afield if necessary. Whatever it takes to restore Lady Lannisport to health.

At first, he and Miss Stark exchanged barbed accusations, each attempting to place the blame squarely on the other’s shoulders. While he doesn’t like her any better and he wagers she feels similarly about him, they’ve settled into this unexpected place, where he counts on her to be his eyes in the room and she counts on him to eliminate anyone she deems lacking within her sister’s circle. It was her idea, for example, to sack the cook. Something about some suspicion of Gendry’s, the damnable stableboy. Jaime didn’t even bother to attempt to ascertain the truth of it, just instructed Wat to tell the woman to collect her things and go.

It’s easier, having someone telling you what to do—especially a woman—and he doesn’t even have the energy to be snide about it.

Miss Stark sidles up to the table he leans his elbows upon and gives him an evaluative once over. He must look every bit as rumpled as she does.

“Well, he’s one of you, isn’t he? Kin of yours.”

Nothing legitimate then, just her prejudice casting aspersions on the man. Jaime’s shoulders lower as the readiness to leap up from his spot and make for the stables on a fresh errand drains from him, leaving him filled with the same heaviness he’s felt for days.

“Oh, kin, that _is_ damning. Did he tell you we’re family? Boast of it?”

“No need. He has your look.”

As do they all, although it was only of late that Jaime began to hate the family resemblance, wishing he had less in common with Lancel or Joffrey. Of course, Jaime would never class Dr. Theomore in appearance with himself or his sister or even his aging father, who is still an imposing figure of a man. Dr. Theomore is a half breed at best, a distant cousin that Jaime can’t be bothered to trace.

“You're family now too, Miss Stark. Did you forget?”

“I do my best.”

“And you don’t trust any of us, is that it, Miss Stark?”

“No,” she says without hesitation.

He pats the table three times, sighs, and shifts in the chair to rest against its back. His bones ache. It may have been hours since last he stood.

He winces as he attempts to stretch a tight muscle in his upper back discretely and fails. She watches him like a hawk, no doubt counting his failures, physical and mental.

“Have you been so poorly treated here in our home?”

“My sister has. By your family and your dear sister in particular.”

If Miss Stark knows of it, she only does because Sansa confessed it. Just as Sansa may have poured her heart out to Sir Jon, giving him good reason to yearn and wish he might spirit her away from Lannisport House. Something he might have tried were he less of a duty bound, sour faced prig.

“Do you deny it?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

It’s an unbecoming, manly gesture, which raises the crook of his brow. “No. My sister treats poorly anyone who stands in her way.”

“Pray tell, how does Sansa stand in Lady Dragonstone’s way?”

Sansa stands between him and his sister.

He assumed it was pride of place in his heart his sister wanted, fearing being supplanted. But Cersei only wants dominion, she only wants sole sway over him. It can’t be anything more than that, when she went straight to Lancel, when she threw his devotion and love back in his face with utter contempt.

_Robert, Lancel…_

Batting away Miss Stark's question with a wave of his hand, he slouches lower into the chair, wincing again. “It doesn’t matter any longer.”

“Her son might still inherit, mightn’t he? This house? Your titles? Is that the source of her concern? Your marrying at last and destroying her boy’s chances at getting even more than what he already has coming? Contemptable greed.”

If there are no children born of their marriage, then yes, Tommen might still inherit all that was not only Lord Dragonstone’s to bequeath but Jaime’s birthright as well. So long as Tyrion does not outlive them all. Jaime’s unsure what the effects of pickling might have, so it’s debatable.

There might be children, however. Though he has not dwelled upon the likelihood, it is a possibility now. A turn of events which Cersei is no doubt well informed about, having her spies safely ensconced within these walls.

 _Good_. That she might have free knowledge of without his complaint.

Although, the plan—to keep away from Sansa’s bed, father no children with her—would have spared him this present terror. By keeping away from her, he meant to spite his father and prove _something_ to himself, though what exactly he can’t rightly say.

Jaime never worried about the safety of his heart. Then he lost his head, and now in his current state of sleeplessness, his anger will be explosive. He’s familiar with the loss of control that comes with battlefield fatigue and sleepless nights. He’ll want to shoot Dr. Theomore through the heart with his pistol, should the doctor fail to save her, stealing his wife from him.

No, he should have never bedded her. If he had not, he would not feel so desperate now. He could pretend she meant less. Weather the undoubtedly forthcoming demands from his father that he should remarry, not without irritation, but without the necessity of strangling his father one-handed. His sister too, for that letter of hers, the implication behind her words, fires his blood. It is an affront to his wife and an affront to him that anyone would congratulate him on her death or consider her replaceable.

Cersei was quick enough to find solace in their cousin’s embrace. Let her rot there.

He struggles to swallow. He oughtn’t to have turned down the last tray of refreshment. Wine would suit.

“Don’t bother trying to understand Lady Dragonstone, Miss Stark. I put a stop to it, you know,” he adds, for somehow, as little as he likes Miss Stark, it is important to him that she understand he tried.

“To what?”

“Her abuse of your sister. Cersei’s behavior.”

“Yes, congratulations on doing what you ought to have done from the start. Sansa told me of your impressive heroics. She is more easily won over by a kind word. They didn’t come soon enough though, I expect, your kind words. Or your defense of her. You let her suffer under your gaze, under your roof. You allowed it.”

He grins, a straight ugly slash across his face. “I expect you’re right.”

He doesn’t need the reminder. He imagines, should he lose Sansa, he will end up haunted forever by the tardiness of his defense of his wife. Another reason she must live: so that he might make amends.

“Regardless of the dubious merits of myself and my family, Dr. Theomore wouldn’t want to displease my father, and my father wouldn’t like the appearance of his children’s spouses dying in such quick succession. There might be hint of scandal. He'll do his damnedest to keep her alive.”

Her eyes narrow to slits. “That doesn’t make me feel much better.”

“Nor should it, if you’re looking for proof of my devotion or that my sister is no villain. But I stand by my assessment of the doctor: I am not fond of the man personally, but we Lannisters make better physicians than we do doctors of the soul.”

She snorts, bending at the waist to peer down at him. “You don’t really, do you? Have family in the ministry? What a jape.”

“You have no idea, Miss Stark,” he says, trailing off, as the library door once more swings open, revealing Dr. Theomore’s stout silhouette.

“Lord Lannisport?” he says, eyes lighting first on Jaime and then on his sister in law. “Miss Stark.” He pauses as if Miss Stark might curtsy, which of course she does not, and he takes another step inside the room.

Jaime forces himself upright in the chair, his muscles giving protest, as he clears his throat. “We must have words, Dr. Theomore. This is only the second time today you’ve been by to see Lady Lannisport.”

The man pulls out his watch fob and with a quick look, tucks it back away. The action, which speaks of other places to be, makes Jaime’s good hand clench the armrest of his chair. There is nowhere more important than this house at Lady Lannisport’s side.

“Can this dressing down wait, my lord, so that I might share news of our patient with you?”

Jaime doesn’t like the man referring to his wife as “our” patient, but with gritted teeth, he manages a nod.

“Excellent. I bear good news: the fever has broken.”

Jaime’s breath catches in his chest. It burns and the longer it does, the harder he feels the pulse of his heart in each limb. He goes to his feet, a movement seemingly done without conscience thought, and demands, “Yes?” expecting some qualifying information, which will temper this blaze of hope.

Dr. Theomore hesitates, rocking back on his heels, as if Jaime means to do him some harm.

No true lion cowers. Half breed indeed.

“And?” Miss Stark prods in equal parts annoyance at the man's delay, even as Jaime shoulders past her, giving up on further enlightenment from the doctor.

He’ll see for himself.

He is halfway out the door, past the doctor and making for the stairs, when he hears Dr. Theomore’s pronouncement, voiced loud enough that it might reach him.

“Lady Lannisport is out of danger.”


	16. The Indiscretion

Lord Lannisport declined to join Lady Lannisport and Miss Stark in their visit to the Tyrells. He might have come along, but the invitation was addressed only to the ladies and he hates to feel stupid, sitting in drawing rooms, when he could be out of doors, making something of the day. Inaction is an abomination.

However, nothing has been accomplished today. There was some half-hearted attempt to go over the books, since he was inside, but the numbers swam before him, as his thoughts repeatedly strayed.

Lady Lannisport is much better, and he is glad of it. Her color, her spirits, her appetite all returned, and yet, he cannot forget how very ill she was not long ago. Nor can he forget how desperate he felt to his core, when it seemed as if he might lose her.

Given how tenuous a recovery can be, he’d rather she hadn’t gone out at all. But if she must insist upon it, he tried to ensure she would not be gone long. Handing them into the carriage, he whispered to Miss Stark, who also had no wish to go, to make as much trouble as possible so that they might not stay over-long in Miss Tyrell’s company.

Nonetheless, by the time he spies the carriage rounding the lane, he judges they've already been absent too long a time given Sansa’s recent state of health. Too long to be away from home, visiting in a drawing room that might be either too cold or too hot.

He jumps up from the chair in which he has been stationed, pretending not to continually watch for their return. He strides from the room and into the next, walking the length of the house and making his way to the great hall. A footman is close on his heels, as Lord Lannisport pushes through the front door and the cold autumn air penetrates his tailcoat and shirt. Today is a day for a greatcoat certainly, but as a younger man, he wouldn’t have thought to don one, just for the purpose of greeting a carriage, so he won’t return inside to demand his be brought now, with his wife’s carriage pulling towards the house. Even if there is a footman close at hand ready to serve.

He can feel the man’s gaze on his back, so he twists and barks a command at him: “Make sure the fire is freshly stoked in the drawing room for Lady Lannisport.”

His 'yes, my lord,' is obscured by the sound of the wheels of the carriage. Jaime approaches. With the footman ducked back inside, he is without an audience, when he goes to open the door. Through it he can make out two faces, one looking sour, the other wearing that pleasant almost smile he looks upon with even greater pleasure after having it been stolen from him by illness.

With the door opened wide, her gloved hand extends to meet his bare one, fingers curling over his palm. But instead of waiting as she finds her footing and steadying her descent, Jaime reaches up into the carriage and wraps his imperfect arm around her middle, lifting her free from the red and gold detailed vehicle. Her eyes go wide, as he draws her down. Her body slides down his front until her slippers meet the ground. It is cold enough that their breath visibly clouds between them, in off-kilter chorus.

“You will have over-tired yourself,” he says, letting his grip slip.

She reaches up, and for a moment, he thinks she means to press her hand to his cheek. Her fingers brush the brim of her bonnet instead. A pretty thing, trimmed in blue, the result of an afternoon project she worked on while tucked on the sofa. It brings out the healthy unclouded blue of her eyes. Becoming though it might be, he wouldn’t mind pulling the ribbons free and tossing it to the ground, so that he might feel her glossy hair beneath his touch.

“Thank you,” she says, throat working above the high-necked collar of her dove grey spencer jacket. “I am well.”

His eyes skim down her form. He hasn’t yet had the chance, but he wouldn’t mind touching her all over, to be sure of her recovery. Or perhaps he is just that starved for her. Ravenous. Like a boy hopelessly distracted by calf-love.

“How went the visit? Did you manage to engage your sister to Lord Highgarden?”

Lady Lannisport’s pretty mouth purses, as Miss Stark groans behind her, descending the carriage without waiting for his hand to assist her.

“We spent a pleasant enough time, but marriage proposals weren’t the goal, my lord.”

“Weren’t they?” he asks, turning to offer her his arm. “When you went out, instead of receiving Miss Tyrell here, after you have been gravely ill, I could only assume there was feminine intrigue afoot. A chance meeting carefully arranged.”

Looping it through, her fingers slide down the rise of his bicep, the leather of her kid gloves making a cat’s tongue sound against his jacket. He has missed this, her light tough, the reassuring weight of her arm in his, the brush of her body against him.

“You’re mistaken. Arya is too young to consider marriage. You once said so yourself.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“He wants desperately to be rid of me, I gather,” Miss Stark says, scuffing her slipper in the gravel, loudly trailing after them. “But for my part, I was more impressed with Lord Highgarden's hounds.”

Lady Lannisport’s bonnet tilts towards him, as he tucks her arm in closer to his side.

“Poor Lord Highgarden,” she says looking around the brim to meet his eye.

Jaime has not forgotten his first indication of what sort of woman he had married, given her stout defense of the continued worth of a man crippled. For all Jaime's insistence, inward and outward, that he had no interest in his wife’s charms, as she assured him that Lord Highgarden was no less a man for walking with a cane, Jaime remembers how he felt. How he wanted to unsettle her with his closeness _—_ the rustling of her skirts with his foot, his stare _—_ how he would have welcomed some sign that he disturbed her calm. Instead, it was she that unsettled him with a mere touch of his knee.

“Poor Lord Highgarden?” he prods, as they enter beneath the porte-cochère, throwing a shadow over her profile. “What is there to pity? He has damn fine hounds. Beautiful steppers too.”

“Yes, but if Lord Highgarden does not find some lady to suit him, Mr. and Mrs. Tyrell’s children will inherit. Mrs. Tyrell was there today, you know, visiting Miss Tyrell.”

The footman has returned, presumably having carried out his task of finding someone else to stoke a fire, and having dispatched that, now holds the door for Lord and Lady Lannisport. Though he is not a well-known fixture of the household, only just having been hired to replace the man Jaime sacked, his wife has a passing smile for the young man in wordless thanks for his efforts.

As kind as she is with the servants, as undemanding and generous, those who played a part in ignoring her signs of illness or who passed word of it on to his sister ought to have suffered worse than being turned out of this house. Since abandoning his post in the library and returning to his bed, Jaime still hasn’t found peace, instead, lying awake, he fantasizes about how he would have liked to punish all involved.

“Lucky for Lord Highgarden, there is no pressing threat of that,” he says, as a serving girl darts forward, ready to come to the ladies' aid.

Unthreading her arm from his, his wife’s brows arch high, almost knowingly.

“Is that meant as a hint regarding her condition?” Jaime asks, as the serving girl slips between him and his wife, ready to take her bonnet and her jacket and spirit them away as soon as she is ready.

“Of course it is,” Arya says, managing to get her bonnet off first with a quick yank on one of the ribbons and a tug, since she takes no care not to disturb her hair beneath. “You would bring it up immediately.”

“It isn’t a secret. One can look at her and tell,” Sansa says defensively.

“Yes, but can’t we be done with talking about it?”

Last he saw Mrs. Tyrell, he wouldn’t have guessed she was with child.

“How big? Frightfully so?” Jaime asks, though he has no real interest other than to watch Miss Stark’s mounting frustration with amusement.

With wisps of hair all about her face, Miss Stark hands the bonnet off to the girl and begins to work on the buttons of her jacket. She frowns fiercely as though the delicate rounded pearls have done her wrong.

It’s too fussy for her. Too long in the arms as well. Sansa must have lent it to her, so that she would look presentable today. He would offer Lady Lannisport take her into town to order a new wardrobe, but he doesn’t doubt Sansa already attempted such an outing and was rebuffed.

“Pray, my lord,” Miss Stark says with a jerk that threatens to free a button permanently, “don’t indulge this line of conversation, or all we’ll be treated to is talk of squalling infants for the rest of the day. Being subjected to it this morning was insufferable enough. Gowns and bonnets and babies. It’s enough to make a person’s brain turn to mash.”

“Not a lady’s,” Sansa retorts. “It is what we are made for.”

“Not I.”

Jaime’s gaze fixes upon his wife’s efforts to carefully free herself of her bonnet and jacket, fingers moving deftly without any sign of her sister’s sort of exasperation. He would make a proper muddle of it without his right hand, but he would like to feel the give of those buttons under the pressure of his thumb just to have the pleasure of undressing her.

He shifts, tugging on the cuff of the sleeve that covers where his prosthetic attaches, as his wife scolds her sister, “Babies can’t help that they cry, and they’re not all as terrible as you were.”

“Ha-ha,” Miss Stark flatly replies, sticking her tongue out, as she wrestles an arm out of one narrow sleeve.

“They can be a real joy.”

“Debatable.”

Sansa rolls her eyes at her sister’s response. “ _Which_ is why Mrs. Tyrell was eager to discuss her forthcoming happiness. And Margaery. To be an aunt? What a pleasure that would be. I am happy for them.”

Her sister’s glare conveys precisely what she makes of the prospect of becoming an aunt. On this point, Jaime and Miss Stark are of accord. Indeed, though he can find little at fault with either Tommen or his niece, Lady Sunspear, Jaime took no great joy in being an uncle long before he decided Joffrey was a miserable brat, too cock-sure for his own good.

Children are a gamble, but then, Joffrey might have been raised by the cat and turned out better.

Sansa would do a better job. He saw it for himself, here while Tommen was visiting.

The idea makes him feel queer as soon he thinks it.

“Yes, good for Garland, I suppose,” he says with another tug, before looking over his nose at his wife, as she carefully folds her jacket and hands it and her gloves to the serving girl with a mouthed thank you. “He isn’t as high in the instep as Loras. He’s a fine shot too. Always shoots more birds than his brothers, when it comes down to it.”

Which when it means outdoing Loras, Jaime must approve, though Jaime in general hates being shown up by anyone.

“All the makings of an exemplary father,” she replies, little dimples forming in her cheeks as her lips purse.

“Yes, why not? If they have a son, he might instruct him on the finer points.”

“What would those be? Point and... shoot?”

Miss Stark huffs, flouncing from the room as the serving girl carries their outerwear away. Perhaps Arya is annoyed with the tone of their banter. She ought to have waited for Lady Lannisport to lead the way to the drawing room, but in private, the pair of them do not always stand on ceremony with each other. It could be that his wife knows there is little point with Arya or there is simply a familiarity there that makes allowances.

Left alone in the great hall, surrounded by naught but portraits and one impressively large marble, Lady Lannisport lingers, adjusting the gold necklace that compresses the collar of her chemisette right at the notch of her neck, which is almost hidden by a multitude of diaphanous layers. “Was I missed, Lord Lannisport?”

She was. Not just today, but for the length of her illness. She was missed very much.

“You were gone too long,” he says, attempting to sound gruff, and nearly managing it, for the fast thrum of his pulse, caused by tracking her fingers trail the ruffles of her chemisette along the slope of her neck, roughens his voice. “Being gone so long, you’d think you have no care for your well-being.”

“I am well, my lord.”

“You look it,” he says, as the curve of one of those pretty fingers of hers comes up to rest between her lips.

He would like to enter into that circle of tolerance for unobserved indiscretions. Indeed, he presently has a notion to indulge in a great indiscretion.

He should give a quick glance behind him to ascertain whether any servant loiters within sight, but he does not. Not before he takes the two short steps over to loop his arm about her waist. Her lips part in surprise and her waist gives, arching as he draws her back, two paces, three, and her arms grasp about his neck, until they are ensconced within the entryway leading to morning room. No one ought to be inside there at this hour and the arched alcove provides them some cover for what he intends.

Her back meets the paneled wall cushioned by his arm and her head tilts up. Her eyes lower to his lips, anticipating his goal. Hers are rosy and waiting. And yet, though he has her here, trapped between his body and the wall, false hand firm against her back and her face invitingly angled, he does not close the distance. He delays, transfixed by the rapid rise and fall of her bosom, the warm press of her, and the heady fragrance of jasmine and orange blossoms.

Last they were alone—but not safely so—and he kissed her when he ought not to have done so, she was full wroth with him. This time he would have it be her that tips the balance towards impropriety. It would help assuage his concerns that yet again he has been deceived in the nature of a relationship. Help bury the notion that Sir Jon weighs on her mind or her heart enough to send her to bed and nearly to an early grave.

She trembles. Enough to make her coral earrings waver. He unfurls a finger to set one properly swinging. He would kiss her here, below her ear, where he imagines her pulse flutters as quick as a goldcrest’s wings, but he holds back.

Her brows knit, confusion at his disinclination to complete his purpose in drawing her to this shadowed space pinching her fair face. Then with a shift on her toes and only a moment’s hesitation, which he feels as a puff of warm breath against his mouth, she kisses him, lightly. Though it’s barely more than a gentle caress, the press of her lips lingers long enough to signal some reluctance to part with this indecorous stolen moment.

His eyes slip close. Victory spreading like warmth through his chest, he nudges her nose with his and rests his brow against hers.

It is a triumph to be sure, one which his male pride feels the full weight of, but her act of daring does not go quite as far as he would like. Indeed, her boldness makes him desirous of a great deal more.

With lashes fanned shyly across her cheek, he lifts her chin up again with a crook of his finger, spans the soft slope of her cheek with his hand, and kisses her again. More deeply with an incline of his head and an upward tug on her slim frame, he draws her solidly against him. Her hand smooths inside his jacket, fingers splayed eagerly against his chest. Lips parted, she tastes of warm and wet. It puts him in mind of other things, tightening the muscles in his arms and thighs, as he curls around her, caging her against the wall. The slow rise of her knee he both feels and hears in a rustle of muslin skirts and silk stockings pulls an answering tug from low in his gut.

He would carry her up the stairs if he could. If she would not protest at abandoning her sister and alerting the whole of the household to their object as his boots meet each tread. But she would protest. As keenly as she murmurs against the slant of his mouth and rubs against him, he knows her well enough to know that this shall be the extent of it.

For now.

He pulls back, but hovering on the balls of her toes, she moves in again, chasing his kiss. He submits to it, another gentle assault, as he strokes her heated cheek with the pad of his thumb.

 _Lovely girl_.

But they must stop if he is not to scoop her up here and now.

She sighs shakily, as he sets her to rights back down on the floor.

Giving her earring yet another flick for good measure, he fights a leonine grin that would wrinkle his eyes if he gave it full rein. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see color in your cheeks again, Lady Lannisport.”

Her necklace catches the light of a weak winter's sunbeam, as her chest gives one shuddering heave. “You have put it there.”

“Indeed,” he agrees, bending low enough to whisper in her ear. “I would share your bed tonight if you don’t mind the company.”

Her hand, still tucked inside his breast, slides lower. “You’re always welcome, my lord.”

They are interrupted before he can growl out a reply or push her back into the wall with the abandon he would like.

Heels sounding on the marble causes her hand to retreat and her nostrils to thin. He steps back, smoothly, as Podrick passes the alcove, spots them, and stops short. He spins on his heel, bows, and extends a silver tray in his white gloved hand.

“My lord, a letter has come for you.”

“Thank you, Podrick,” Jaime says, lifting the letter from the tray.

Podrick bows again, as Jaime peers down at the letter, and leaves them in a diminishing echo of footsteps.

Sansa brushes at her skirts, though they are not disturbed from their earlier indiscretion. Her color is high and Jaime still would not mind backing her into the wall again, but her attention has shifted. Or she has recovered her senses.

Whatever the case, she leaves him standing there, looking down upon the address.

“Who is it from?” she asks, pausing in the middle of the hall, waiting for him.

He knows the hand well. “Tyrion,” he says, resolved to follow after her, though his body is uncomfortably strung tight.

“I hope he is well.”

“He always is somehow,” he says, popping the seal with a slide of his finger, “in spite of how he abuses himself.”

“Bring your letter into the drawing room. Sit with us.”

A hard ride would probably do him some good if he cannot have the pleasure of taking her to bed in the middle of the day. Making himself quit her presence, however, is more difficult than he would have ever imagined it might be, when he spent his days trying to stay as far away from his new wife as possible.

“Yes, I shall, only so as to make sure you don't take it into your head to over-tire yourself further.”

“I own, I am tired, but it was such a relief to be out again,” she says with another backward glance that sends her curled ginger tendrils bouncing against her collar, as they enter the drawing room, where her sister sits with her feet pulled up on the sofa. “Wasn’t it good to be out, Arya?” she asks, crossing the room to join her sister on the same seat, though there is plenty of seating of which she might avail herself.

They are close like that, though they argue and bicker at every turn. Next, Sansa will pull out her embroidery and chide her sister for failing in many days to practice hers. It’s a wasted habit, for the girl is hopeless at it, but his wife will try.

Standing behind the chair closest the fire, he spreads the folds of the letter, exposing his brother’s blotted scrawl. Tyrion can sometimes write a veritable tome, requiring multiple pages tucked inside the folds of the quarto, but this is not one of those missives. This is short. A few lines. Easy to scan and discover the meaning.

Not easy to let fully register, however. The words convey precisely what he feared when last he left his sister's company.

“My Lord?”

“My sister has quit her home.” He stops. Fights to swallow. He feels as if he might be sick. Here in the drawing room with two women looking on. “With my cousin, Mr. Lannister.”

His wife's hand comes up to cover her mouth, but whatever face she hides behind it, her eyes are still wide with disbelief. “They have eloped?”

“Worse.”

_Though our cousin is trained to perform nuptials, none seem planned. Shocking scandal! The end of her good name!_

His brother’s brief pronouncement is almost gleeful, as though he is pleased as Punch at this revolting development.

_She has done the unthinkable—unthinkable for all but our dear sister!_

Or perhaps Tyrion merely rejoiced in being the one to shove the news under Jaime’s nose.

Jaime crushes the letter in his fist.

“Why would she do such a thing?” his wife asks, coming to her feet as if she might go to him, and that he can not stomach, not her kind touch or imploring looks, not now.

Increasing the distance between them purposefully, he steps back, stuffing the letter behind him in his clenched fist.

Perched on the sofa, Miss Stark watches the two of them suspended there on the oriental rug, her eyes darting from one to the other.

He should say something, but he doesn't have words. For, it makes no sense to him either. It was his fear, but it should not have become reality.

Cersei might have done as she pleased with Lancel behind closed doors, and as a widow, there would have been little cause for scandal, so long as she conducted herself with even a modicum of discretion. Widows are granted ample leeway; Jaime knows from some small personal experience how widows find male companionship when they wish. Superior in wealth and station, there would be no good reason to throw herself into the power of Lancel.

Was she truly in such a passion? Did she love Lancel so violently that she murdered her husband and ran away with him the first chance she got?

_He reminds me of you. When you were younger of course._

Cersei never loved Jaime like that. She couldn’t even tolerate the loss of his hand and manage to still love him.

He takes another step back, which his wife notes with a downward glance at his retreating feet.

If Sansa knew, if she knew how it was, what they are, why Cersei is like this, she would have never ceased to wish they hadn't wed. Even now, should she discover it...

He crushes the letter again in a fresh fist.

With a tilt of her head, Sansa folds her hands before herself. “Must you go then? Your father will want her retrieved surely.”

He will. The Earl of Casterly Rock will be beside himself. He will want no stone unturned in the effort. The honor of his family is everything to him.

“Let him retrieve her himself,” he spits back, as his shock begins to burn and twist into a hot fury.

Her chin dips as if in understanding. She wets her lips and takes another step forward even as he continues his answering retreat, dreading her gentle ministrations.

“Perhaps it is not so bad. Your cousin is unmarried?”

“A clergyman.”

Her face, usually so carefully composed, registers some shock at that. But what is a liaison in comparison to murder? Lancel no doubt already crossed a line from which there is no returning long before he climbed atop Jaime's sister.

Who does he think he is? Nothing but the son of a second son.

“Then they can marry. You see, it is not so bad,” she reasons in softened tones meant to mollify him. “Whatever their intentions, they can be convinced to marry.”

“No, she is lost.”

When has anyone ever convinced Cersei of anything?

“My lord,” his wife begins.

But her sister interrupts, cutting short whatever Sansa means to plead by coming to her feet. “What a farce.” Her face is split by an ugly grin. She moves quickly towards him, as if to skip from the room in unbounded joy. “And to think,” she says, halting at his shoulder. She leans in close. “You thought I’d be the one to bring ruin down on us all, my lord. It looks as if the source will be much closer.”


	17. The Revelation

The quiet knock on the door interrupts Jaime’s solitude in a distant, indistinct way. Though he blinks, the flames from the fire upon which he’s stared for who knows how long remain luridly fixed on the back of his eyelids. It makes no difference—open or shut—he sees the reddish orange glare.

It is late. Too late for his wife to come knocking at his door. It is not her habit. A servant, perhaps, might come knocking with a tiresome interruption, but then, he can tell from the tentative way the door creaks open that it is not a servant accustomed to intruding on his privacy.

He comes to Lady Lannisport in her chamber. Always and with great regularity.

It is winter, but the days are long in spite of the season. The interminable length owing to his bad humor. The mood in the house has been so bad, since receiving intelligence of Cersei’s flight, that his wife sent Arya home to Winterfell. She is too well brought up to tell the master of Lannisport House that his behavior necessitated the removal of her relation. Without a henpecked tongue lashing, he still deduced easily enough that she meant to spare her sister his temper or spare herself their endless sparing.

But as long as the days are and as sour his mood, the nights would be ceaseless without her. As the weeks have turned into months, time passing relentlessly since his sister fled her home, he has come to his wife’s bed smelling of wine and head swimming with accusations. Yet, his feet relentlessly brought him to her door. Desperate to forget himself, he comes seeking to lose himself in her soft embrace and the cradle of her legs.

Not tonight. Tonight, she has come to him.

What a terrible shame the timing is so bad. On another occasion, it would be a conquest, her seeking him out. He would take pleasure in her desiring him and a show of her mettle.

He is not inclined to congratulate himself tonight. Darker spirits prevail.

The letter came late, carried by a rider. His mount covered in foam by the time he reined him in at the front approach in a scuff of gravel. A scurry of servants in the great hall and upon the stairs heralded the letter’s arrival well before it appeared before him like a viper curled upon a silver tray.

There was no question of going to his wife after he digested the contents of the letter, swallowing its poison. No way he could ever forget, no matter how honied Lady Lannisport’s characteristic curative.

Instead, he has watched the dance of the slowly dying fire, transfixed, head supported by the brace of his arm on the mantelpiece.

“My lord,” she says, her soprano voice lifting in unvoiced question, when he does not turn to address her.

His fingers curl, dragging over the painted mantel. “You ought to go to bed.”

If she flinches at the edge in his voice, he isn’t forced to see it.

He frightened her at first, when he would come upon her uninvited. It annoyed him, an evident sign of weakness.

Now he does not care to distress her. The cowardice would be his, giving in to tempers and causing her alarm. Which is why he must hide certain things from her, those things that would trouble her.

Better to leave her to the romantic fancies she has crafted for herself. He knows something of those comforts.

“I would join you, my lord, if I am welcome here.”

It is one thing to go to her, but it is another to grant her access to his private spaces. The more the curtain is drawn aside, the more likely she won’t care for what she spies.

He is destruction, destroying himself and others with too great an ease. In uniform, a useful skill; within the walls of this house, a decided liability.

He ought to growl. Send her scurrying.

“Suit yourself, Lady Lannisport.”

He lets his head roll against his forearm, looking off to the side. Standing too far back on the oriental rug centered in the room, she doesn’t come into view even with the slight adjustment. He can’t manage more.

Perhaps in refusing to give up his position here, he’ll turn into a statue, another lion for the house, to match the stone ones below.

“I confess I heard the commotion and asked after its cause. There was a letter.”

He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

There is very little that goes on in this house without Lady Lannisport knowing of it first. The servants that remain, the ones he did not turn out, are so devoted to her that they rush to inform her of every coming and going.

“Business?” she prods.

Business does not often pull a man of his station from his bed. She is aware of this. Sir Eddard, naught but a trifling baronet, was of enough importance that his servants would have balked at disturbing his slumber.

Unless the news is ruinous. Were Jaime a great gambler, there might be cause for concern. Drunk and in need of funds, Jaime imagines his brother has been awakened by his panicked manservant from time to time. Frivolous spending and chance are not Jaime’s vices. Though he has taken risks enough in other settings.

“A family matter,” he says, letting his hand fall and finally turning on her. “You guessed as much.”

She is not the innocent he wed, when last it was summer. Standing before him, in her unadorned white cotton nightrail, neck high and hem reaching below her knees, she could pass for a maid still. Other married women of wealth flirt with the new fashion of lace and bows to trim their nightgowns, but Sansa Stark is modest in her dress.

It deepens her appeal, though she can’t be aware of it. She is so unlike anything he knew before or thought to desire. Novelty, but more than that—his wife and his alone, not to be shared ever.

Pushing off the mantel, he stalks across the space between them. Stopping before her, his shadow engulfs her person.

They stare back at each other. Almost at eye level. Her height was one of the things he admired first. It remined him of someone he counted as the most beautiful woman in all of England.

The rest of her does not beg comparison. He contemplates the curve of her cheek. Fuller than before, though he may have forgotten the exact shape of her beauty, as her illness shaved some youthful bloom from her profile. Her cheeks are rosier too, almost dusky in their flush. Put there, he supposes, by the daring of her coming to his room.

Whatever the case, she is loveliness itself.

Her throat rolls above the ruffled neck of her nightrail. “Has your father any word? Any success in locating your sister?”

His prosthetic settles on her waist. The leather does not convey the experience of touching her here where his hand is wider than her narrow middle. His prosthetic carries no pleasure to the rest of him, but it amply does the job in pulling her close. Her feet stutter forward between his wide stance, up onto the rise of her toes, and her hands hover at his side, brushing the linen of his shift, but not actually grabbing his middle to steady herself.

At least with all his failures, he is still trim, not a wide-waisted old man, pinning her beauty beneath him with a too abundant girth.

Dipping his head to whisper against the shell of her ear, he corrects her assumption. “The letter was from Cersei. The wayward woman herself.”

“You’ve heard from her,” she says, voice verging on an optimistic chirp. Her body shudders, as he rocks her into him, the prosthetic held fast against the small of her back, and she swallows again with a flutter of her lashes. “Good news, I hope.”

There is no reason Lady Lannisport should wish his sister’s hiding place uncovered. Save for the possibility that Cersei and Lancel have wed, which would spare her new family some shame. Still, as vicious as his sister was, when she visited with her now deceased husband and Tommen in tow, Sansa would be justified in wishing Cersei disappeared forever.

Lucky for Lady Lannisport, she might as well be. She is to him—dead.

“I burned it.”

Watch it catch and curl and disappear into naught but ash. Even when the ash settled, he watched, her words still dancing before him.

 _Come at once. Help me. Save me_.

He can hear her voice, her purr.

He shuts his eyes against the phantasm and opens them again to look without madness upon his wife. He tilts his head to the side, considering the bow of her lip, but the movement throws light from the fire across half her face. Her hair illuminates, ginger turning to gold, confusing him once more.

He exhales through his teeth and tries again, bringing his good hand up to cup the side of her neck, brushing aside the silky hair that betrayed him. Her skin is warm beneath his hand, almost hot to the touch. Narrowing his eyes, he brings her face back into proper focus.

His brow touches hers. It’s a relief, touching her, grounding him to this spot and place.

Dragging his thumb along the curve of her throat, he tips her chin up until her mouth is invitingly close. “Why did you come here to me?” he asks, voice dropping an octave.

It suddenly matters a great deal.

He searches her eyes through the curtain of her fair lashes.

“I thought you might have need of me, my lord,” she says, breath ghosting against his lips.

His fingers flex against her flesh.

“I do,” he says, urging her upward.

She draws a sharp breath, as their lips meet. He chases it. Brushing featherlight kisses, he alternates with a nip to that pretty pout. It spikes his gut with want. It’s a tender assault he didn’t know himself capable of, when he believed himself all aggression and force. His wife has taught him otherwise.

With every gentle brush of their lips, he is more assured he could kiss her forever. Yet, he’s eager for these full and youthful lips to part for him, to press them towards something more. The two feelings war with each other. Until the question is settled: he tilts his head and drags his tongue against the seam of her mouth. She opens for him.

Her ready willingness to meet the caress of his tongue swells his chest. So too does the noise she makes, small and vibrating through him. He answers her back with a deeper groan. Pressing more firmly, his fake hand slides higher, as his tongue dips into her mouth.

She is sweet. Her mouth tastes of peppermint, an aromatic added to her tooth powder. He would taste her all over, places that would darken her flushed cheeks all the more. He kisses her, moving over the rise of her cheek, behind her ear, each kiss lingering longer, building, as she grips his shift and leans heavily against him. He would shoulder her legs apart and taste her the way they do in Paris and Florence and London in the better houses, where the women are powdered and perfumed.

The hollow ache in his chest opened up with the delivery of that letter drives him to reach behind his head and haul his shift off. To scoop her up, yielding and pleasant in her weight. To carry her over to his bed and deposit her atop the bedclothes with urgent need. Need of her or merely the need to forget himself, to be nothing more than a body strung tight with pleasure, he can’t say or admit.

To a certain degree, it doesn’t matter. He’s good at this. Without a right hand, he thought he would be as good as impotent, a lame beast. But he is a true proficient here in his bed with his wife. Good hand moving over her breast, gathering the hem of her nightrail, and exposing the pale of her thighs, freed of the crushing dullness of daily existence, he feels intensely aware of being capable and alive.

She’s alive too—warm and wet and curving beneath him, as his hand finds her center and his fingers sink into her, where she is as soft as petals. Fingers curled up and moving purposely, he forgets his right hand, the loss of his soldiering career, Cersei. He forgets everything but his wife’s head tipping up and her rosy lips parting in pleasure and then moving, whispering and pleading with him.

Courteous even with her legs writhing atop the bedclothes, heels slipping, she begs. A series of pleases, tripping over each other. The sibilant sounds raise the hairs on his arms, as he touches his tongue to the tip of his teeth.

He doesn’t pause his efforts, doesn’t cease the path of his mouth, dampening the cotton on the rise of her breast, up her straining neck, until he must nose aside strands of hair to kiss at her ear.

“Yes?” he asks, dragging her earlobe through his teeth. “Please, what, my dear?”

He draws his nose along her cheek, bumps her nose with his, kisses her lightly as she rocks against the palm of his hand, and finally, she speaks the truth against his mouth. “I need you.”

Her legs are already splayed open, her body ready, and her eyes drift shut when he buries himself in her. It is only the desire to watch himself that keeps him from mirroring her closed eyed ecstasy. Inside of her, he’s focused on one thing—her, this, them. His vision pleasantly narrowed like looking down the barrel of a pistol. Braced on one bent arm, he angles to watch himself move in her. Until a thumb he adds to bring her closer blocks his view.

Her back arches beneath him, the sounds she makes soft and keening, making him clench his jaw against his own building tension. He can’t yet give in yet, driving fast and seeking release. Having brought her so close to the edge, however, he doesn’t have long to wait until her hands scratch at his shoulders and her thighs tremble around his waist. Unspooling here at the end, she grips him so tightly that he almost is undone.

With her limp and humming in satisfaction beneath him, he hooks her leg under his arm and changes the pace to suit his need. The world grows smaller yet, narrowing until it is one lone spot and his vision goes dark. Numbing, tightening pleasure settles deep and screws his eyes shut tight, until a field of stars fill his mind.

How did she become his world?

He meant to ignore her. Spend his time away from Lannisport House as much as he possibly could. Preferably at Dragonstone.

 _Come at once. Help me. Save me_.

She’s not there, his sister quit Dragonstone, and he has quit her.

Heart pounding, he collapses. Head resting against the slope of her shoulder, he sucks in a slow breath and exhales hard. Her hands stroke over his back, slip up into his hairline, and then back down again. Over and over.

Turning his head, he presses a lazy kiss to the curve of her elegant neck. She tastes of salt. He noses along her neck. There’s a salty tang on her skin, but she smells vaguely like a sweet dough. It’s a good smell, soothing.

Bone heavy and brow damp, he finally brings himself to slide off of her to the side. Face down in the pillow, he would fear coming back to himself fully, but she’s here beside him, a comforting presence. Her fingers play at his temple, brushing back hair that has fallen forward, tracing mindless, swirling patterns against the thrum of his pulse. It’s soothing, a kind of comfort to which he had grown unaccustomed, since his mother died.

“Will you go to her?” she asks, fingers stilling.

Just like that, the present rushes up to meet him. Irritation washes over him at her feminine urge to _talk_. He groans into the pillow.

He could walk from this room, seek out some quiet corner and lock the door behind him. If she searched him out, it would at least take her some time before she found him.

When he twists his head towards her, it is the way she looks back at him that keeps him from pursuing escape. Dewy and wide, her hair a pleasant cloud of flyaway whisps, unformed and wild, she resembles a maid willingly awaiting sacrifice upon an ancient altar. He wields the dagger, for she assumes he means to go after his sister. He can see it: her resignation, the preparation for his leave-taking dancing behind her vivid blue eyes.

Cersei likes to imagine that between herself and her twin, he is the simple, predictable one, and she is the superior intellect. He can be relied upon to do what she expects. If his wishes don’t align with hers, she can bend him to her purpose. Even as children, that was the narrative Cersei penned.

Cersei’s most recent plan is wholly incomprehensible. Why she would run off with his cousin and then beg rescue is beyond his understanding. Jealousy, for sport, as a test of Jaime’s loyalty, any one of these things might have driven her. He believed they were two halves of a coin; he understood her unquestionably.

He was mistaken.

She has been wrong too. Cersei did not count on Jaime loving his wife. Not really.

“No, I think not. I have no interest in coming to heel.”

Confusion knits her features. “Are they wed then?”

“They are not,” he says, lifting first his prosthetic and then his left hand to wipe his brow.

It would have been an advantageous match for his cousin, and yet, Lancel did not take the bait. Perhaps he suspected the poison.

“Lancel is gone,” he says, rolling onto his back with a wince. His shoulder is tweaked. Not thick in the waist, thankfully, but age shows itself in other less apparent ways. “Fled the scene. Stricken by a crisis of religious conviction, it would seem.”

“An inopportune time for him to remember his calling.”

He glances sidelong at her, absorbing her surprising irreverence with interest. His wife is pious. At least, she takes the call to attend service and visit the poor with a devotion befitting her position, whatever her personal convictions. He certainly has never had reason to speak to her on matters of faith. So long as he is not required to attend with her, he is content.

“One wonders what his flock will make of this misadventure,” she says, lifting her rear to work her shift back down over herself with a shimmy.

A shame, as some of those parts happen to be his favorite bits. Although, it is hard to find fault with any part of his wife, physical or otherwise. She might talk less after a good bedding. That would not be entirely amiss.

As for Lancel, Jaime is indifferent to his cousin’s fate. Cersei wrote that their cousin demonstrated signs of popery. He meant to become a cannibal was her colorful description of his new religious convictions. He made off for France, where she believes he might join a monastery.

It seems more likely to Jaime that Lancel would skulk back to his parish, pretend none of it ever happened, and go back to writing uninspired sermons. Although, it isn’t entirely impossible he has decamped for the Continent. Blood on his hands might call for a more permanent holiday abroad. To save his neck or his soul.

“Well, if there is no hope there,” she sighs, shifting closer, “a different tactic must be employed.”

Her breast brushes his bicep and his gaze dips from her eyes. It is truly unfortunate she drew her shift down.

“Yes? You have a proposition?”

“I do,” she says, biting the corner of her mouth. “If Lady Dragonstone can be recovered, she might come here, stay with us. Her reputation would be recovered with time.”

He frowns, scratching at his chest absently. “You would have her under your roof?”

Sansa is not usually one to lay traps for him, not the way his sister was wont to do, but surely she would never willingly accept his sister into the bosom of their household.

“I would,” she says, her hand stealing up to join his pillowed on his chest. Her fingers wrap around his hand. “She is your family. Your sister.”

He grips her back, squeezing her delicate fingers. “She is a poison.”

“I can stand up to some scandal, my lord.”

It is no trap. She means her offer in sincerity, though she must despise the idea.

What she doesn’t sense is the peril.

“You wouldn’t be safe.” The scheming and jealousy, Robert dead and his own wife quite nearly the same. “I fear what she’s already attempted with you. She had some hand in it, along with that maid of yours, when you were ill. I know it. If given enough time, I could prove it too.”

His brother is not the only one with a brain between his ears in the family.

“My lord, no one was at fault for my coming down with a cold.”

He can see her as she was, skin pale and glistening, lids blueish and dark and ever closed to him. That image is etched upon his mind as surely as his mother’s is upon her deathbed.

“No one dies of colds,” he says darkly.

“I didn’t die,” she says, a smile pulling at the corners of her kiss smudged lips. “I am here. With you.” She gives his hand a little shake. “Alive and well, my lord.”

Her knee slides up over his thigh, edging herself partially over him. He has half a mind to kiss her again, roll her under him and draw out her pleasure once more. It would end this unpleasant line of discussion. But as industrious as his Stark wife is, she might attempt something on his behalf. First, he must forbid any such thing, then he might put both this subject and his wife to bed.

“You mustn’t tell anyone Lady Dragonstone wrote. Mustn’t seek her out yourself either. It should be as if she never was. Do you understand, my dear?”

Given how Cersei’s actions have shamed herself and the family, no one would ever question Lady Lannisport never deigning to name her.

“I find it hard to believe you mean that.”

“Believe it, my dear.”

He is afraid not only for his wife’s safety, but also for their future together. His history with Cersei threatens them. Cersei holds the power to ruin everything. Unless he steals that power from her.

Unflinchingly, he stares up at the chintz bed-hangings overhead, until his wife blurs at the edges of his vision. He appreciates the lack of clarity. Appearing incorporeal, it is a specter to which he makes his confession, not a living breathing woman, who he stands to lose. As a result of something that occurred long before she was ever born.

“We would sleep together as children. Heads pressed together.”

When they were small, he thought sleep impossible unless Cersei shared his pillow. He needed Cersei close, always.

Until he was moved to the opposite end of the house, as far from his sister as possible within the sprawling Casterly Rock.

“Cersei and I were discovered by a serving girl. She screamed until Mother came. That was the end of our sharing a bed.”

His words hover as though they have form in the air. He’s never spoken them aloud. To do so would have made it impossible to ever be close to his sister, the implications too grave.

What he fears in voicing them now is not the loss of his sister.

She is already gone, and as it turned out, never his in truth.

His wife’s thumb arcs back and forth over his skin, disturbing the sparce hair there. Flattened close to his heart, she must feel it pounding.

Her leg shifts against him, as she works her way partially upright and looks down on him, bringing herself back into focus.

Impossible to ignore. That was the plan—ignore her as best he could. It seems ridiculous now.

“What you speak of, this thing, it’s nothing but child’s play,” she says, hand smoothing over his chest.

“Sansa,” he says sternly, as if he speaks harshly enough, she will understand. “My mother bid me to always protect Cersei, as I have sworn to protect you.” Vows always in conflict. All along. A vow to his mother, to the king, to a wife. Always conflicting, so he might never succeed at one without failing in another. “I stood by as my sister married a man who could never love her. Watched her claw her way higher, though it was never enough. Kept myself free, so if she needed me, I could step in at the ready.”

“You have been a devoted brother to be sure, but I know children. It was childish curiosity, my lord, and that is all.”

Pushing up in the bedclothes, he unseats her in an inelegant little tumble. He seizes her by her birdlike arm, fingers wrapping practically all the way around. “You couldn’t conjure up in that pretty head of yours what I mean.”

She looks down coolly at his hold on her and then back up. “You have nothing to regret.”

She’s so bloody certain. She doesn’t even blink.

His mother did not think it nothing. He expected his sweet wife to shrink from what he did as well; she is so like his mother after all, so above reproach, so well loved.

“Mother warned us that if we did it again, Father would hear of it,” he says, pushing, certain she will break and recoil. At least then it will be done. “Cersei’s nursemaid, her governess, they were always at her side like good watchdogs, guarding the sheep. But my sister is no lamb.”

No lamb indeed.

Cersei has traded up this thing between them. She used him, kept him close, insisting on his devotion for her vanity long after she had no use for him.

She expects he will come running after years of intricate designs. Even his career, the thing he so valued, was her suggestion at the start. Noting sometime later that men in service often marry so late in life that even their brother might beat him to the alter.

It suited her to have him placed on the shelf. All of his choices have been hers, until he chose to defend his wife.

“Someone ought to have told you, my lord, it was nothing. In your innocence, it wasn’t wrong.”

“Innocence,” he says with a grin. He lifts his chin at her. “Some of us are born with bad characters.”

“I have some experience with villains, so I won’t be fooled. You are a good man.”

Releasing her, he crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s quaint of you to say that.”

She purses her lips. “She is your sister, which is why you might bring her here without complaint on my part, though she was less than kind to me. But there is no other debt owed on your part beyond the obligation of family. Her choices are hers and not your doing.”

He waited most of his life for the moment when Cersei would have need of him, when she would choose him, so that they might be safe in their love for each other. Whole and complete and understood as no one else possibly could understand.

“No, not a debt. Not to her or a God that doesn’t look down on us. It just _was_ , Sansa—her and I. As much as my hand was naturally a part of me until it wasn’t.”

At that, his wife finally withdraws, her hands pulling into herself and her shoulders curling forward.

_I need you as I have never needed you before._

Cersei threw him away as soon as he was not perfect in her eyes. Not suited for the high esteem in which she holds herself.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

_Come at once._

But he can’t. He won’t.

Perhaps he was devoted to the wrong woman. The woman in question making the material difference.

Sansa accepted him without a hand, without a career or purpose, when he believed himself to be half a man. She accepted him, though she would have preferred to have been left in Winterfell to lick her wounds in the comfort of her family. She accepted him and became his in more than just vow.

A good man—she either believes it in her generosity of spirit or merely means to will it into being, this supposed goodness of his.

Perhaps he could be that for her. A man must have a purpose after all. Let that be his for her sake. At least play act that he is, so as to be deserving of her love. A love that isn’t all sharp edges and bared teeth. A love deserving protection.

If she will have him still.

“Would you have me gone? Leave you to Lannisport House and the neighborhood?”

Her chest rises and falls. “No. I would have you here.”

 _His wife_.

He cocks a brow. “This was your chance to be rid of me.” Once, not so very long ago, he thinks she would have leapt at the chance. “I shall not be offering others.”

“Good.”

His heart is plucked like a harp string by her avowal.

He stretches out a hand to ruffle the hem of her shift, where it shows as she kneels in the bedclothes. Right above the curve of her calf that fits so neatly into his palm.

He needn’t try to satisfy his father or Cersei or anyone but himself and Sansa. That is his charge. That being true, he might successfully lead a step without so many dancing masters to please.

“I have something to tell you. Good news, I hope,” she says, running her hands down over her thighs to wear he toys with her hem. “I’ve felt too shy to say.”

Linking her fingers with his, she lifts their hands to her middle. His gaze follows, settling on her belly. It is soft beneath his touch. Her rounded face, flushed cheeks, and overheated flesh. Her absence from the table in the morning, when he took breakfast alone on more than one occasion of late. All of it, signs for which he did not seek evidence.

He is as dim as his sister imagines him to be.

The corners of her lips quirk and fall, a nervous energy imbuing her quick patter. “It’s not just me you will be staying for, I’m afraid. I am expecting.”

His fingers spasm against her—not a caress, but a wholly involuntarily movement.

“If you are not happy, don’t speak it,” she says, voice soft but face brightly fixed as if anticipating his welcoming of this news. “In time you might grow to be glad of it and then it will be better that nothing to the contrary was ever said.”

His brows draw together in concentration, attempting to feel something, to force something to rise up above the whirring of his need to cling to her, the flotsam that promises to save him from untethered oblivion. At the most, he’s uneasy, unnerved. If he means to pin everything on his wife, he must acknowledge that he could lose her, as he lost his mother to the child bed. Or lose her affections to a child she will love better in their sweet innocence. She was so very good with Tommen.

A good man would be elated to find his wife with child.

Hands pressed together against the voluminous fabric of her nightrail, he spreads his fingers wider to span her belly. “I am overjoyed, my dear,” he says, practicing the sentiment.

Whether or not his performance is a good one, she rocks forward on the mattress tick and slides between his arms. His arms fold her in as if there is no hesitation on his part upon this revelation. Resting her head upon his shoulder with a sigh, she seeks out his comfort and assurance, blanketing herself in his invention. His yearning, lonely little wife.

He has been lonely too.

Sansa is a woman so perfectly made for motherhood; it would be wrong to deny her that joy. Perhaps he will come to share in it, as she said. She is so often right.

“I love you, you know,” she says, against his skin. She turns her head by inches left and right, rubbing her lips over his shoulder, sinking the words in.

Has she said it before? He has imagined it said a hundred times, perhaps even believed it said, but he doesn’t recall a precise instance. It’s a balm to his soul, her muffled confession murmured against his neck. It slows the rush of his blood, the feverish neediness and uncertainty of its return.

“Do you, my dear?” he says, reaching up to tangle his hand in the thickness of her hair.

Not fair but ginger, and more importantly, not pretty in spite of it, but because of it. His wife, the loveliest woman in the county and quite possibly the whole bloody kingdom.

He trails a finger down first few bumps of her spine, where ringlets sway during the day, drawing his gaze and making him think of messing her until she is soft and undone like this. “Against your own better judgement, I’m sure.”

Her arms go tighter about his neck. “I am an excellent judge of character, my lord.”

“I own, I doubt it now. The effect of too many novels. It’s taught you to believe in heroes and praiseworthy husbands.” He twists his head to place a lingering kiss to her temple. “My love for you? A much sounder choice.”

And that is no invention.


End file.
